Henry Adams, The Education Of Henry Adams Quotes
No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught.
He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced.
The habit of expression leads to the search for something to express. Something remains as a residuum of the commonplace itself, if one strikes out every commonplace in the expression.
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. The imagination must be given not wings but weights.
The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women.
The tourist was the great conservative who hated novelty and adored dirt.
Philosophy . . .consists chiefly in suggesting unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.
He supposed that, except musicians, every one thought Beethoven a bore, as every one except mathematicians thought mathematics a bore.