John Adams Quotes - Page 13

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• The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition.

  John Adams

  Cheer, Men, Numbers

  John Adams (2016). “John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826”, p.320, Library of America

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• A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.

  John Adams

  Ambition, Men, Presidential

  Diary and Autobiography, 14 Nov. 1760

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• Did you ever see a portrait of a great man without perceiving strong traits of pain and anxiety?

  John Adams

  Strong, Pain, Men

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.217

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• 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.

  John Adams

  Eye, Simple, Imagination

  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.79, UPNE

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• 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.

  John Adams

  Patriotic, Heart, Men

  John Adams (1805). “Discourses on Davila: A series of papers, on political history. Written in the year 1790, and then published in the Gazette of the United States”, p.26

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• 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.

  John Adams

  Nature, Money, Ignorance

  John Adams' Letter to Thomas Jefferson, founders.archives.gov. August 23, 1787.

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• 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”

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• If we take a survey of the greatest actions...in the world...we shall find the authors of them all to have been persons whose Brains had been shaken out of their natural position.

  John Adams

  Inspirational, Brain, World

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• When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.

  John Adams

  Miracle, Intuition, Atheism

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.85

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• Riches attract attention, consideration, and congratulations of mankind.

  John Adams

  Money, Congratulations, Riches

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• There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic; this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.

  John Adams

  Ambition, People, President

  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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• 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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• The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.

  John Adams

  Kings, Law, Rights

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• Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the world. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest.

  John Adams

  Hands, People, Liberty

  "Discourses on Davila : A Series of Papers on Political History first published in the Gazette of the United States". Book by John Adams, No. 13, 1805.

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• Since natural law was thought to be accessible to the ordinary man, the theory invited each juror to inquire for himself whether a particular rule of law was consonant with principles of higher law. This view is reflected in John Adams' statement that it would be an 'absurdity' for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, 'against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.'

  John Adams

  Men, Views, Law

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• 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

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• I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer.

  John Adams

  Beer, Philadelphia, Cider

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• I sometimes, in my sprightly moments, consider myself, in my great chair at school, as some dictator at the head of a commonwealth. In this little state I can discover all the great geniuses, all the surprising actions and revolutions of the great world in miniature. I have several renowned generals but three feet high, and several deep-projecting politicians in petticoats. I have others catching and dissecting flies, accumulating remarkable pebbles, cockleshells, etc., with as ardent curiosity as any virtuoso in the Royal Society.

  John Adams

  School, Knowledge, Feet

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.9

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• The Christian Religion as I understand it is the best.

  John Adams

  Christian, Religious

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.627

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• Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.

  John Adams

  Vanity, Vices, Danger

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.16

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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, as each branch has upon the other two; the power I mean of electing at stated periods, one branch, which branch has the power of electing another. It becomes necessary to every subject then, to be in some degree a statesman: and to examine and judge for himself of the tendencies of political principles and measures.

  John Adams

  Mean, Hands, 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.437

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• The truth is that neither then nor at any former time, since I had attained my maturity in Age, Reading and reflection had I imbibed any general Prejudice against Kings, or in favour of them. It appeared to me then as it has done ever since, that there is a State of Society in which a Republican Government is the best, and in America the only one.

  John Adams

  Kings, Reading, Maturity

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Autobiography (cont.) Diary. Notes of a debate in the Senate of the United States. Essays: On private revenge. On self-delusion. On private revenge. Dissertation on the canon and the feudal law. Instructions of the town of Braintree to their representative, 1765. The Earl of Clarendon to William Pym. Governor Winthrop to Governor Bradford. Instructions of the town of Boston to their representatives, 1768. Instructions of the town of”, p.154

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• I do not like the late resurrection of the Jesuits. . . . If ever any congregation of men could merit eternal perdition on earth, and in hell, according to these historians, though, like Pascal, true Catholics, it is this company of Loyolas.

  John Adams

  Men, Catholic, Earth

  John Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.219

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• The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.

  John Adams

  Atheism, Preaching, Malice

  John Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.35

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• I am quite content to come home and go to Farming, be a select Man, and owe no Man any Thing but good Will. There I can get a little health and teach my Boys to be Lawyers.

  John Adams

  Family, Home, Boys

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