John Adams Quotes

We think ourselves possessed, or at least we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we f...

The Presidential election has given me less anxiety than I myself could have imagined. The next administration will be a troublesome one, to whomsoever it falls, and our John has been too much worn to...

Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, C...

This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or 's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mi...

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.

It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men... and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several s...

I am bold to Say that neither you nor I, will live to See the Course which 'the Wonders of the Times' will take. Many Years, and perhaps Centuries must pass, before the current will acquire a Settled...

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has p...

...Defeat appears to me preferable to total Inaction.

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 Mus...

I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check.

A pleasant morning. Saw my classmates Gardner, and Wheeler. Wheeler dined, spent the afternoon, and drank Tea with me. Supped at Major Gardiners, and engag'd to keep School at Bristol, provided Worces...

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?{}

In politics the middle way is none at all.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Old minds are like old horses you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.

Be not intimidated...nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hy...

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble app...

He wrote as a young man that God's noblest gift was the gift of an inquiring mind.

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.