78 Quotes by Lincoln Steffens

Boston has carried the practice of hypocrisy to the n-th degree of refinement, grace, and failure.

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.

In all cities, the better classes - the business men - are the sources of corruption, but they are so rarely pursued and caught that we do not fully realize whence the trouble comes.

If we would vote in mass on the more promising ticket, or, if the two are equally bad, would throw out the party that is in, and wait till the next election and then throw out the other party that is in - then, I say, the commercial politician would feel a demand for good government and he would supply it.

The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle.

One improvement I have learned from my childhood experience with my father: I do not threaten punishment in the morning. That was awful. Late into the night I would lie awake tossing and wondering what he was going to do to me. Usually he did nothing. A quiet, impressive 'talking to' was all I got.

You ask men in office to be honest; I ask them to serve the public.

If my father could watch my son for a while, he might realize his own immortality.

My father, the practical joker, did not care for practical jokes on himself; he did not encourage the practice in me.