John Adams Quotes

That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the world.

The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.

That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience.

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity

The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.

The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

Government has no Right to hurt a hair of the head of an Atheist, for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices.

The National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man.

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

The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.

I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?

But I must submit all my Hopes and Fears, to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be, I firmly believe.

God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.

When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.

This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!

This is my religion ... joy and exaltation in my own existence ... so go ahead and snarl ... bite ... howl, you Calvinistic divines and all you who say I am no Christian. I say you are not Christian.

The true source of our sufferings has been our timidity.

Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education...to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher.

Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.

Historically, usury was defined as any interest whatever on an unproductive loan.Our whole banking system I have ever abhorred, I continue to abhor, and I shall die abhorring.

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.

When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, "My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.

Admire and adore the Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to lessen ill, and increase good, but never assume to comprehend.

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

The Constitution is ...the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen

Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.

[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.

You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities, so that their children can study painting, poetry and other fine things.

Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.

As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.

We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it.

The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.

Elections to office, which are the great objects of ambition, I look at with terror!

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?