Quotes from Lincoln Steffens

Morality is only moral when it is voluntary.

If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation.

My father seemed always to know not only what I was doing, but what I was being.

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.

Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.

If our political leaders are to be always a lot of political merchants, they will supply any demand we may create. All we have to do is to establish a steady demand for good government.

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.

Power is what men seek, and any group that gets it will abuse it. It is the same story.

Revolt is not reform, and one revolutionary administration is not good government.

The only thing worth having in an earthly existence is a sense of humor.

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

The doctrine of Jesus is the most revolutionary propaganda that I have ever encountered.

I am really puzzled to understand myself.

I have been contending all my life, and always with God.

Power is what men seek and any group that gets it will abuse it.

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.

I never heard a Christian sermon preached in a church.

I have been over into the future, and it works.

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

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

The longer I live, the more I feel that the individual is not so much to blame - not even the worst individuals, not even the 'best' citizens - as the system of corruption which has grown up about us, and which rewards an honest man with a mere living and a crook with all the magnificence of our magnificent modern life.

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

Whenever anything extraordinary is done in American municipal politics, whether for good or for evil, you can trace it almost invariably to one man. The people do not do it. Neither do the 'gangs,' 'combines,' or political parties.

My father required me to honor my father and my mother too much to put up games on them. I did on occasion.