JohnAdamsQuotes

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of

freedom.

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.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free

government ought to be to trust no man living with power to

endanger the public liberty.

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and

murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit

suicide.

Liberty cannot be preserved without 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.

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office

that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination

conceived.

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.

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond

the comprehension of the weak.

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is

violating all his laws.

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes,

exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet

that did not commit suicide.

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.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual

control of rivalries.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other

nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I

should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the

most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no

more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a

living and the other how to live.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free

government ought to be to trust no man living with power to

endanger the public liberty.

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.

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.

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and

chicanery, of

party, faction, and division of society.

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.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our

inclinations,

or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter

the state of facts and

evidence.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

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 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.

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and

thereby have

consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the

ruin of our children. I give

you this warning that you may prepare

your mind for your fate.

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.

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.

WddNews.com ~ Quotes from John Adams ~

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