John Adams QuotesThis is a featured page

John Adams
  • "A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man."
  • "A government of laws, and not of men."
  • "All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."
  • "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense."
  • "As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children."
  • "Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases."
  • "Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."
  • "Genius is sorrow's child."
  • "Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."
  • "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."
  • "I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman."
  • "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."
  • "If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?"
  • "In politics the middle way is none at all."
  • "Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."
  • "Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people."
  • "Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power."
  • "Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order."
  • "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
  • "A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man."


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