Inspirational Quotes by James Truslow Adams (American Historian)

We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: Wisdom

As we look over the list of the early leaders of the republic, Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, and others, we discern that they were all men who insisted upon being themselves and who refused to truckle to the people. With each succeeding generation, the growing demand of the people that its elective officials shall not lead but merely register the popular will has steadily undermined the independence of those who derive their power from popular election. The persistent refusal of the Adamses to sacrifice the integrity of their own intellectual and moral standards and values for the sake of winning public office or popular favor is another of the measuring rods by which we may measure the divergence of American life from its starting point.
—James Truslow Adams

Life is activity, hence the deep-seated objections to negations.
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: Life

It may be that without a vision men shall die. It is no less true that, without hard practical sense, they shall also die. Without Jefferson the new nation might have lost its soul. Without Hamilton it would assuredly have been killed in body.
—James Truslow Adams

Man is a creature of impulse, emotion, action rather than reason. Reason is a verylate development in the world of living creatures, most of whom, as far as we know, get along admirably in daily life without it.
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: Reason

There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: Education

The freedom now desired by many is not freedom to do and dare but freedom from care and worry.
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: Worry

Scientific knowledge is constantly changing. A discovery of one year receives confirmation the next or is thrown aside.
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: Knowledge

The whole of the American Dream has been based on the chance to get ahead, for one’s self or one’s children. Would this country have ever reached the point it has if the individual had always been refused the rewards of his labors and dangers?
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: America

Capital is to the progress of society what gas is to a car.
—James Truslow Adams
Topics: Money

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