John Adams Quotes
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Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.
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The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.
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Is there no way for two friendly souls to converse together, although the bodies are 400 miles off? Yes, by letter. But I want a better communication. I want to hear your think, or to see your thoughts.The conclusion of your letter makes my heart throb more than a cannonade would. You bid me burn your letters. But I must forget you first.
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Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.
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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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When annual elections end, there slavery begins.
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But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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Thanks be to God, that he gave me Stubborness, when I know I am right.
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A government of laws, and not of men.
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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.'
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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.
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My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived; and as I can do neither good nor evil, I must be borne away by others and meet the common fate.
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There are few people in this world with whom I can converse.
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The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense, in a house of representatives. The most illustrious of them must, therefore, be separated from the mass, and placed by themselves in a senate; this is, to all honest and useful intents, an ostracism.
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The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a Theatrical Show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that; i.e. all the Glory of it.
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I can treat all with decency and civility, and converse with them, when it is necessary, on points of business. But I am never happy in their company.
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Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
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It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.
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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.
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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
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There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
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No pretext, arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
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All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
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By my physical constitution I am but an ordinary man … Yet some great events, some cutting expressions, some mean hypocracies, have at times thrown this assemblage of sloth, sleep, and littleness into rage like a lion.