John Adams Quotes

I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.

If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.

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

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.

I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame

The divine science of government is the science of social happiness, and the blessings of society depend entirely on the constitutions of government.

This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and ever.

I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: 'Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800'.

When you see a good move, sit on your hands and find a better one.

One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.

The Christian Religion as I understand it is the best.

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?

Politics are the divine science, after all.

I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.

It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the constitution and course of nature the foundations of the distinction.

You may have the bishop pair but I have the ultimate advantage; I am the better player!

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

Pray how does your asparagus perform?

[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.

Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at; for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.

Thomas Jefferson survives.

If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?

I was very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it [law of nature], as a resource to which we might be driven by Parliament much sooner than we were aware.

Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.

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.

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.

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.

During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight and the westsight that appeared in that august assembly.

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.

You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.

I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer.

The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.

It is an observation of one of the profoundest inquirers into human affairs that a revolution of government is the strongest proof that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense.

Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude and I am utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territories.

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

I read my eyes out and can't read half enough...the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.

A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

Remove yourself, sir!

You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture.You've got to become them."(Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History)

A government of laws, and not of men

The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.

In esse I am nothing in posse I am everything.

Every man in it is a great man an orator a critic a statesman and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory his criticism and his political abilities.

If I had refused to institute a negotiation or had not persevered in it I would have been degraded in my own estimation as a man of honor.

Swim or sink live or die survive or perish with my country was my unalterable determination.

player: Can I reach it with a five iron? caddie: Eventually.

Had I been chosen president again I am certain I could not have lived another year.

The four most miserable years of my life . . .