John Adams Quotes About Morality

Quotes about: Morality

• Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

  John Adams

  Bible, God, Religious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229
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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 have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.

  John Adams

  Religious, Revenge, Passion

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.229

• In vain are Schools, Academies, and Universities instituted, if loose Principles and licentious habits are impressed upon Children in their earliest years . . . . The Vices and Examples of the Parents cannot be concealed from the Children. How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers.

  John Adams

  Education, Mother, Children

  John Adams (2004). “The Portable John Adams”, p.75, Penguin

• [I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.

  John Adams

  Liberty, Foundation, Principles

  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.401

• The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.

  John Adams

  Foundation, Morality

  John Adams (2004). “The Portable John Adams”, p.75, Penguin

• Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.

  John Adams

  Banking, Done, Morality

  John Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.375

• Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil.

  John Adams

  Fate, America, Self

  John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

• Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.

  John Adams

  Liberty, Morality, Founding Fathers Religion

  John Adams (2012). “The Letters of John and Abigail Adams”, p.132, Simon and Schuster

• I have long been settled in my own opinion that neither Philosophy, nor Religion, nor Morality, nor Wisdom, nor Interest, will ever govern nations or Parties, against their vanity, their Pride, their Resentment, or Revenge, or their Avarice, or Ambition. Nothing but Force and Power and Strength can restrain them.

  John Adams

  Revenge, Philosophy, Party

  John Adams (2016). “John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826”, p.102, Library of America

• The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation: The doctrine of a supreme, intelligent sovereign of the universe, I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.

  John Adams

  Believe, Men, Intelligent

  John Adams (1965). “The John Adams papers”

• Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.

  John Adams

  Government, Religion, Foundation

  John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 9: Letters and State Papers 1799 - 1811”, p.501, Jazzybee Verlag

• The form of government which you admire, when its principles are pure is admirable indeed. It is productive of every Thing which is great and excellent among men. But its principles are as easily destroyed as human nature is corrupted. Such a government is only to be supported by pure religion or Austere morals.

  John Adams

  Men, Religion, Principles

  Massachusetts Historical Society, John Adams, Samuel Adams, James Warren (1917). “Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814”

• When the Congress first met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with prayer . . . Mr. Samuel Adams arose and said he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend to his country. He . . . had heard that Mr. Duche . . . deserved that character and therefore he moved that Mr. Duche . . . might be desired to read prayers to the Congress . . . . After (he read several prayers), Mr. Duche, unexpected to everybody, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present.

  John Adams

  Country, Prayer, Character

• If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?

  John Adams

  Hypocrisy, Religion, World

• Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.

  John Adams

  Passion, Whales, Morality

• The study and practice of law ... does not dissolve the obligations of morality or of religion.

  John Adams

  Law, Practice, Doe

  John Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.32

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