John Adams

Now to what higher object, to what greater character, can any mortal aspire than to be possessed of all this knowledge, well digested and ready at command, to assist the feeble and friendless, to discountenance the haugh…

There is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.

You and I ought not to die,before we have explained ourselves to each other.

Facts...are stubborn things...

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, that two become a lawfirm, and that three or more become a congress.

Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.

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

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantag…

A man ought to avow his opinions and defend them with boldness.

It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtue…

Knowledge in the head and virtue in the heart, time devoted to study or business, instead of show and pleasure, are the way to be useful and consequently happy.

There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous [founding nations upon superstition]; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The…

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.

The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.

They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.

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.

I want to see my wife and children every day, I want to see my grass and blossoms and corn ... But above all, except the wife and children, I want to see my books.

There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so f…

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 from these exalted…

Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.

No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.

Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men.

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

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.

Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.

The true source of our sufferings has been our timidity.

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, abhorr…

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from want of honor or virtue, but from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.

There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.

Everything in life should be done with reflection.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.

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

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821}

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!

Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

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

Nineteen twentieths of [mankind is] opaque and unenlightened. Intimacy with most people will make you acquainted with vices and errors and follies enough to make you despise them.

If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle

Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.

When writing the constitution for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, John Adams wrote: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.

Tacitus appears to have been as great an enthusiast as Petrarch for the revival of the republic and universal empire. He has exerted the vengeance of history upon the emperors, but has veiled the conspiracies against the…

The whole drama of the world is such tragedy that I am weary of the spectacle.

[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and…

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

...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…

The happiness of society is the end of government.