Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by John Quincy Adams (American Head of State)

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) was an American Republican statesman who served as the sixth president of the USA 1825–29. He was the oldest son of John Adams, the second U.S. president, and First Lady Abigail Adams.

Born in Braintree, now Quincy, Massachusetts, Adams became a private secretary to the American emissary in St. Petersburg at the age of 14. After accompanying his father to Paris for the peace negotiations with Great Britain, he began to study at Harvard in 1785 and was admitted to the Bar in 1790.

Adams became one of America’s most excellent diplomats serving in The Hague, London, Lisbon, and Berlin. He served in his father’s administration before becoming a Federalist Party member in the U.S. Senate 1803–08. As secretary of state 1817–24 under President James Monroe, Adams was primarily responsible for formulating the Monroe Doctrine, one of the foundational principles of American foreign policy.

Adams became president without a majority against Andrew Jackson; the House of Representatives confirmed his appointment. His administration accomplished nothing of importance because he lacked a mandate and because of his non-partisan approach. Jackson defeated Adams in the subsequent elections.

After leaving office, Adams served in the House of Representatives 1830–48 and was prominent in the campaign against slavery and the safeguarding of freedom of speech.

Adams’s freethinking mind is suggested by the diversity of his writings, which include his Memoirs (12 vols., 1874–77,) Poems of Religion and Society (1848,) and the Report on Weights and Measures (1821.)

Historian and biographer Paul C Nagel wrote John Quincy Adams: a Public Life, a Private Life (1999.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by John Quincy Adams

Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Temptation

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Voting

In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill-will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow-men, not knowing what they do.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Charity

All that I am my mother made me.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Mother

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her Americas heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
John Quincy Adams

La molesse est douce, et sa suite est cruelle.
John Quincy Adams

To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so, is something worse.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Honesty

So great is my veneration for the Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country and respectable members of society.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Bible

Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: One liners, Idleness

Duty is ours; results are God’s.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Duty

In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Bible

Always vote for a principle, though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Principles, Voting

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Friendship, Love, Life

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Democracy

Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable uses, which ever signalized the spirit of the age, or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder, none can be named more deserving of the approbation of mankind than this. Should it be faithfully carried into effect, with an earnestness and sagacity of application, and a steady perseverance of pursuit, proportioned to the means furnished by the will of the founder, and to the greatness and simplicity of his design as by himself declared, the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, it is no extravagance of anticipation to declare, that his name will be hereafter enrolled among the eminent benefactors of mankind. Whoever increases his knowledge, multiplies the uses to which he is enabled to turn the gift of his Creator.
John Quincy Adams

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Freedom

Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers and of love for our posterity.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Character

I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say to you, Search the Scriptures! The Bible is the book of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice through, and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted, unless by some overruling necessity.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Bible

All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Change

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Perseverance, Luck, Patience, Obstacles, Difficulty

The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in (Great Britain) than in any other place that I ever saw.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Britain

I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
John Quincy Adams
Topics: Generations

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