Sourced and curated.

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.

1845

★ 1.9

Dissertation · Newspaper

This is the most significant movement of all! There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots, that I greatly admire. The people should never rise without doing something to be remembered, something notable and striking. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an epocha in history.

1765

★ 1.9

Personal journal

Metaphysicians and politicians may dispute forever, but they will never find any other moral principle or foundation of rule or obedience, than the consent of governors and governed.

1773

★ 1.9

Essay · Newspaper

1775

★ 1.9

I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.

Letter to Abigail Adams, November 2, 1800 · 1800

★ 1.9

Speech

1802

★ 1.9

The fundamental Article of my political Creed is, that Despotism, or unlimited Sovereignty, or absolute Power is the same in a Majority of a popular Assembly, and Aristocratical Counsel, an Oligarchical Junto and a Single Emperor.

1813

★ 1.9

It is a source of gratification and of encouragement to me to observe that the great result of this experiment upon the theory of human rights has at the close of that generation by which it was formed been crowned with success equal to the most sanguine expectations of its founders.

Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams · 1825

★ 1.9

The forest has fallen by the ax of our woodsmen; the soil has been made to teem by the tillage of our farmers; our commerce has whitened every ocean. The dominion of man over physical nature has been extended by the invention of our artists.

Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams · 1825

★ 1.9

Whatsoever is of domestic concernment, unconnected with the other members of the Union or with foreign lands, belongs exclusively to the administration of the State governments. Whatsoever directly involves the rights and interests of the federative fraternity or of foreign powers is of the resort of this General Government. The duties of both are obvious in the general principle, though sometimes perplexed with difficulties in the detail.

Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams · 1825

★ 1.9

It has promoted the lasting welfare of that country so dear to us all; it has to an extent far beyond the ordinary lot of humanity secured the freedom and happiness of this people. We now receive it as a precious inheritance from those to whom we are indebted for its establishment, doubly bound by the examples which they have left us and by the blessings which we have enjoyed as the fruits of their labors to transmit the same unimpaired to the succeeding generation.

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

Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams · 1825

★ 1.9

Personal journal

1760

★ 2.0

We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 2.0

Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people?

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 2.0

Irritated by no literary altercation, animated by no public debate, heated by no party animosity, I read it with great satisfaction, as the result of good heads prompted by good hearts, as an experiment better adapted to the genius, character, situation, and relations of this nation and country than any which had ever been proposed or suggested.

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 2.0

From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams · 1825

★ 2.0

Pamphlet · Political literature

Wear dark clothes after 6 p. M. Eat fresh fish for breakfast when available. Avoid kneeling in unheated stone churches. Ecclesiastical dampness causes premature gray hair. Fear tastes like a rusty knife and do not let her into your house. Courage tastes of blood. Stand up straight. Admire the world. Relish the love of a gentle woman. Trust in the Lord.

1776

★ 2.1

Novel

John Cheever

The Wapshot Chronicle · 1957

★ 3.4

Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

1821

★ 3.5

Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.

The jaws of power are always opened to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible to destroy, the freedom of thinking, speaking and writing.

1822

★ 3.5

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right... and a desire to know-but besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded, and envied kind of knowledge. I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.

1765

★ 3.6

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

The law, in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations of the passions, or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a steady undeviating course; it will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations, and wanton tempers of men... On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamours of the populace.

1765

★ 3.6

Courtroom speech · Speech

1770

★ 3.6

Yesterday, the greatest question was decided, which ever was debated in America, and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."

1776

★ 3.6

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.

The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and the executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.

1776

★ 3.6

Pamphlet · Political literature

1776

★ 3.6

When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. 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.

Letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 15, 1817 · 1817

★ 3.6

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy.

1780

★ 3.7

You and I, ought not to die, before We have explained ourselves to each other.

1813

★ 3.7

Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide.

Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.

1814

★ 3.7

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

1765

★ 3.8

In Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

Virtue is not always amiable.

1776

★ 3.8

Personal journal

1779

★ 3.8

What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?

Nature writing · Autobiography and memoir

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 3.8

The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot.

Henry Beston

1928

★ 5.0

Short story

It was at the highest point in the arc of a bridge that I became aware suddenly of the depth and bitterness of my feelings about modern life, and of the profoundness of my yearning for a more vivid, simple, and peaceable world.

John Cheever

1978

★ 5.0

Speech · Courtroom speech

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.

1770

★ 5.3

Every project has been found to be no better than committing the lamb to the custody of the wolf, except that one which is called a balance of power.

1789

★ 5.3

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

1798

★ 5.3

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

1818

★ 7.0

Pamphlet · Political literature

1776

★ 7.1

I agree with you, that in Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

A government of laws, and not of men.

1776

★ 7.1

Essay · Newspaper