John Adams Quotes About Authority

Quotes about: Authority

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  Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

  John Adams

  Leadership, Character, Persistence

  "I’ll Vote for That" by Katharine Rose, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 22, 2015.

• We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

• Here, every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offense.

  John Adams

  Gun, Defense, Arms

  "Legal Papers of John Adams". Book edited by L. Kinvin Wroth and Hiller B. Zobel, 3:248, 1965.

• . . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.

  John Adams

  Religious, Father, Rights

  John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.293

• 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”

• 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

• The question before the human race is, Whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether Priests and Kings shall rule it by fictitious Miracles? Or, in other words, whether authority is originally in the People? Or whether it has descended for 1800 Years in a succession of Popes and Bishops, or brought down from Heaven by the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, in a Phial of holy Oil?

  John Adams

  Kings, Law, Oil

  John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1971). “The Adams-Jefferson letters: the complete correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”, Touchstone

• Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, for the people; and if the cause, the interest and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute abler and better agents, attorneys, and trustees.

  John Adams

  People, Agents, Betrayed

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.13, Hackett Publishing

• The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth. Not a Baptism, not a Marriage, not a Sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost... There is no Authority civil or religious: there can be no legitimate Government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All, without it is Rebellion and Perdition, or in more orthodox words Damnation.

  John Adams

  Christian, Religious, Government

  John Adams' letter to Benjamin Rush (December 21, 1809), as quoted in "No, Mr. Beck, John Adams Did Not Think Governments Must Be Administered by the Holy Ghost" by Chris Rodda, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 16, 2010.

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