John Adams Quotes - Page 16

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• There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.

  John Adams

  Government, People, Dignity

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.583

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• The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.

  John Adams

  Patriotic, Thinking, People

  "The Life of Thomas Jefferson". Book by Henry S. Randall, p. 587, 1857.

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• Mr. Jefferson has reason to reflect upon himself. How he will get rid of his remorse in his retirement, I know not. He must know that he leaves the government infinitely worse than he found it, and that from his own error or ignorance.

  John Adams

  Retirement, Ignorance, Errors

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• 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 those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.

  John Adams

  4th Of July, Patriotic, Independent

  John Adams (2003). “The Letters of John and Abigail Adams”, p.114, Penguin

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• The dons, the bashaws, the grandees, the patricians, the sachems, the nabobs, call them by what names you please, sigh and groan and fret, and sometimes stamp and foam and curse, but all in vain. The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America.

  John Adams

  Names, America, Liberty

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.387

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• Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables.

  John Adams

  Children, Land, Two

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.8

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• Pray how does your asparagus perform?

  John Adams

  Food, Vegetables, Cooking

  Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.174, UPNE

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• It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the constitution and course of nature the foundations of the distinction.

  John Adams

  Men, People, Foundation

  John Adams (1787). “A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America”, p.159

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• Thomas Jefferson survives.

  John Adams

  Life, Death, Life And Death

  Quoted in Susan Boylston Adams Clark, Letter to Abigail Louisa Smith Adams Johnson, 9 July 1826. In fact, Jefferson had died a few hours earlier on this, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Eliza Quincy, in her 1861 memoirs, wrote that the last words Adams spoke distinctly were "Thomas Jefferson"; the rest of the sentence, she noted, was inarticulate. See Jefferson 55

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• The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or there will be no blessings.

  John Adams

  Blessing, Government, Vices

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.418

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• I didn't grow up imagining myself as an opera composer. Only once in my entire adolescence did I attend an opera. I went and saw Aida at the old Met, didn't understand a thing about it, and thought it was pretty awful. But I think I had it in my genes without even realising it.

  John Adams

  Growing Up, Thinking, Opera

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• Numberless have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in themselves; but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and establishment of the canon and the feudal law.

  John Adams

  Success, Passion, Law

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.449

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• My history of the Jesuits is not elegantly written, but is supported by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very horrible. Their restoration is indeed "a step toward darkness," cruelty, perfidy, despotism, death and I wish we were out of danger of bigotry and Jesuitism.

  John Adams

  Darkness, Historical, Wish

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• We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands; we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.

  John Adams

  Hands, Two, Voting

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.437

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• Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

  John Adams

  Christian, Men, Numbers

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1969). “The Works of John Adams: Controversial papers of the Revolution (continued) Works on government”

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• Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell.

  John Adams

  Kings, Rights, Tyrants

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.462

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• During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

  John Adams

  Together, Revolution, Three

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Diary, with passages from an autobiography. Notes of debates in the Continental Congress, in 1775 and 1776. Autobiography”, p.511

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• There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel... Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books?

  John Adams

  Christian, Country, Inspiration

  Thomas Jefferson, John Adams (2006). “"Ye Will Say I Am No Christian": The Thomas Jefferson/John Adams Correspondence on Religion, Morals, and Values”

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• Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.

  John Adams

  Government, Perfect, Moral

  John Adams, Lyman Henry Butterfield (1961). “Diary and Autobiography: Diary, 1755-1770”

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• July 4th ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion.

  John Adams

  4th Of July, Declaration Of Independence, Deliverance

  Letter to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776

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• Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors.

  John Adams

  Voting, Curiosity, Wish

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• Were I to define the British constitution, therefore, I should say, it is a limited monarchy, or a mixture of the three forms of government commonly known in the schools, reserving as much of the monarchical splendor, the aristocratical independency, and the democratical freedom, as are necessary that each of these powers may have a control, both in legislation and execution, over the other two, for the preservation of the subject's liberty.

  John Adams

  School, Government, Two

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.480

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• It is much easier to pull down a government, in such a conjuncture of affairs as we have seen, than to build up, at such a season as the present.

  John Adams

  Government, Democracy, Affair

  John Adams (2016). “Papers of John Adams, Volume 18: December 1785 - January 1787”, p.539, Harvard University Press

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• If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?

  John Adams

  Men, Principles, Foundation

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.194

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• Politics are the divine science, after all.

  John Adams

  Divine

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.512

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