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
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- John Adams American Head of State
- Thomas Jefferson American Head of State
- John F. Kennedy American Head of State
- Calvin Coolidge American Head of State
- Andrew Jackson American Head of State
- Abigail Adams American First Lady
- John C. Calhoun American Head of State
- Franklin D. Roosevelt American Head of State
- Abraham Lincoln American Head of State
- William McKinley American Head of State
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