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Quotes of the Day for 16 February 2005 - Henry Brooks Adams

Henry Brooks Adams was born at Boston, Massachusetts on this day in 1838, at the very apex of Boston society. His father Charles Francis Adams was a statesman of note, later serving as minister to England during the Civil War. His grandfather was John Quincy Adams, the sixth US president, and his great grandfather was John Adams, the second president. His mother was the daughter of the wealthiest family in Boston. The home on Hancock Avenue included the largest private library in Boston. Naturally, he went to Harvard. After graduation in 1858 he began the classical "Grand Tour" young men of his estate were expected to make, then served as private secretary to his father from 1861 to 1868 in the embassy at London. He took up journalism on his return, then was named Professor of Mediaeval History at Harvard. He wrote well-regarded history, biography, a couple of novels, and his autobiography won a Pulitzer. His prose is definitely worthy of note.

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of facts.

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

It is impossible to underrate human intelligence - beginning with one's own.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

American society is a sort of flat, fresh-water pond which absorbs silently, without reaction, anything which is thrown into it.

No man likes to have his intelligence or good faith questioned, especially if he has doubts about it himself.
     - All from Henry Brooks Adams, 1838 - 1918

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