I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
—John Adams
Topics: America
Yesterday the greatest question was decided which was ever debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided upon men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.
—John Adams
Topics: America
The happiness of society is the end of government.
—John Adams
Topics: Society
But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and sixthe swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
—John Adams
Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at; for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.
—John Adams
Topics: Popularity
Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.
—John Adams
Topics: Government
Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.
—John Adams
Topics: Vanity
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence.
—John Adams
Topics: Wishes, Facts, Passion, Act
You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; right derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe
—John Adams
Topics: Government
The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense, in a house of representatives. The most illustrious of them must, therefore, be separated from the mass, and placed by themselves in a senate; this is, to all honest and useful intents, an ostracism.
—John Adams
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that… and all the glory of it.
—John Adams
Topics: Independence
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
—John Adams
Topics: Mind, The Mind
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.
—John Adams
Topics: Liberty
The arts and sciences, in general, during the three or four last centuries, have had a regular course of progressive improvement. The inventions in mechanic arts, the discoveries in natural philosophy, navigation and commerce, and the advancement of civilization and humanity, have occasioned changes in the condition of the world and the human character which would have astonished the most refined nations of antiquity. A continuation of similar exertions is everyday rendering Europe more and more like one community, or single family.
—John Adams
Whenever vanity and gaiety, a love of pomp and dress, furniture, equipage, buildings, great company, expensive diversions, and elegant entertainments get the better of the principles and judgments of men and women, there is no knowing where they will stop, nor into what evils, natural, moral, or political, they will lead us.
—John Adams
Topics: Luxury
If I had refused to institute a negotiation or had not persevered in it, I would have been degraded in my own estimation as a man of honor.
—John Adams
Topics: Resolve, Perseverance, Endurance
Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity.
—John Adams
Topics: The Past, Past
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
—John Adams
Topics: Freedom, Thinking
Genius is sorrow’s child.
—John Adams
Topics: Genius
The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.
—John Adams
Topics: Revolutions, Revolution, Revolutionaries
Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, “that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.”
—John Adams
Topics: Freedom
The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.
—John Adams
Topics: Knowledge, Property
It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.
—John Adams
Topics: Weakness
I request that they may be considered in confidence, until the members of Congress are fully possessed of their contents, and shall have had opportunity to deliberate on the consequences of their publication; after which time, I submit them to your wisdom.
—John Adams
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
—John Adams
In politics the middle way is none at all.
—John Adams
Topics: Politicians, Politics
Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
—John Adams
Topics: Writing, Reading
The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.
—John Adams
Topics: Religion
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination—everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
—John Adams
Topics: Religion
While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill-little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
—John Adams
Topics: Government
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Thomas Jefferson American Head of State
- John Quincy Adams American Head of State
- George Washington American Head of State
- Calvin Coolidge American Head of State
- Abigail Adams American First Lady
- Charles G. Dawes American Diplomat, Politician
- Richard Nixon American Head of State
- Theodore Roosevelt American Head of State
- Lyndon B. Johnson American Head of State
- Herbert Hoover American Statesman
Leave a Reply