Quotes · Skopia

32 quotes

1775

★ 7.2

Letter

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

John Adams

1776

★ 7.1

Pamphlet · Political literature

The happiness of society is the end of government.

John Adams

1776

★ 7.1

Letter

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

John Adams

1818

★ 7.0

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.

John Adams

1770

★ 5.3

Letter

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.

John Adams

1789

★ 5.3

Letter

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.

John Adams

1798

★ 5.3

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

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

John Adams

1765

★ 3.8

Letter

In Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

John Adams

1776

★ 3.8

Personal journal

Virtue is not always amiable.

John Adams

1779

★ 3.8

Speech · Political speech

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

John Adams

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 3.8

Letter

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

John Adams

1780

★ 3.7

Letter

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

John Adams

1813

★ 3.7

Letter

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

John Adams

1814

★ 3.7

Dissertation · Newspaper · Political literature

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.

John Adams

1765

★ 3.6

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.

John Adams

1765

★ 3.6

Courtroom speech · Speech

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.

John Adams

1770

★ 3.6

Letter

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."

John Adams

1776

★ 3.6

Letter

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.

John Adams

1776

★ 3.6

Pamphlet · Political literature

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.

John Adams

1776

★ 3.6

Letter

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.

John Adams

Letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 15, 1817 · 1817

★ 3.6

Pamphlet · Political literature

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

John Adams

1776

★ 2.1

Personal journal

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

John Adams

1760

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

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.

John Adams

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

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?

John Adams

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

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.

John Adams

Inaugural Address of John Adams · 1797

★ 2.0

Dissertation · Newspaper

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.

John Adams

1765

★ 1.9

Personal journal

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.

John Adams

1773

★ 1.9

Essay · Newspaper

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.

John Adams

1775

★ 1.9

Letter

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.

John Adams

Letter to Abigail Adams, November 2, 1800 · 1800

★ 1.9

Letter

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.

John Adams

1813

★ 1.9

Letter

My Country has in its Wisdom contrived for me, the most insignificant Office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived.

John Adams

1793

★ 1.2

Sourced and curated.