This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. John Adams More Quotes by John Adams More Quotes From John Adams My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone! John Adams revolutionreligion Ideology is the science of idiots. John Adams idiotideology Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots. John Adams libertarian-partymajorityliberty The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties; not to oppress an individual or a few, but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited. John Adams jealousgovernmentpeople As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it. John Adams foundationgovernmentpeople It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives. John Adams compassionambitionchildren The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know...Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly [with your God]. This is enough. John Adams mercyenoughthinking Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society. John Adams unnecessary-warpartygovernment The date will be the most memorable epoch 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 forever more. John Adams 4th-of-julysportsbelieve Our whole system of banks is a violation of every honest principle of banks. There is no honest bank but a bank of deposit. A bank that issues paper at interest is a pickpocket or a robber. But the delusion will have its course. ... An aristocracy is growing out of them that will be as fatal as the feudal barons if unchecked in time. John Adams aristocracyissuesprinciples I would quarrel with both parties, and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either. John Adams tonguepartyunderstanding The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves. John Adams squareseducationschool We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular governments. But there is great danger that those governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear that in every assembly, members will obtain an influence by noise, not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance, not learning. By contracted hearts, not large souls. John Adams greatnessignoranceheart ...Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it. John Adams governmentcitiespeople A government of laws, and not of men. John Adams presidentiallawmen Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases. John Adams persistenceleadershipcharacter As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. John Adams atheistreligiouschristian Power must never be trusted without a check. John Adams checkstrustedpower And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people who have a right from the frame of their nature to knowledge, as their great Creator who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings and a desire to know. But besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible divine right to the most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers. John Adams educationcharactermean If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle John Adams tailsmenbelieve
