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John Adams QUOTES

John Adams QUOTES

1 " Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

2 " The more Adams thought about the future of his country, the more convinced he became that it rested on education. Before any great things are accomplished, he wrote to a correspondent, a memorable change must be made in the system of education and knowledge must become so general as to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. The education of a nation instead of being confined to a few schools and universities for the instruction of the few, must become the national care and expense for the formation of the many. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

3 " Remove yourself, sir! "

― David McCullough , John Adams

4 " These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. 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 virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

5 " That government is best which governs least. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

6 " The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think....Let us dare to read, think, speak, write. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

7 " Government is nothing more than the combined force of society or the united power of the multitude for the peace, order, safety, good, and happiness of the people... There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all the others by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike...
The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation it is impossible they should be enslaved.
Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable...
There is a danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living wth power to endanger public liberty. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

8 " The author perceives nuances of Abigail Adams' character in the occasional errors she makes in readily quoting John Milton. Rather than giving the observer a reason to quibble, they are evidence that she had absorbed Milton's works enough to feel comfortable quoting them from memory. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

9 " Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams "

― David McCullough , John Adams

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

― David McCullough , John Adams

11 " There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

12 " 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. This is enough. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

13 " I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study paintings, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

14 " We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

15 " I've always been dissatisfied, I know that. But lately I find that I reek of discontentment. It fills my throat, and it floods my brain. And sometimes I fear there is no longer a dream, but only the discontentment. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

16 " Adams was both a devout Christian and an independent thinker, and he saw no conflict in that. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

17 " As time would prove, he had written one of the great, enduring documents of the American Revolution. The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the oldest functioning written constitution in the world. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

18 " Remember all men would be tyrants if they could - from a poem by Daniel Defoe, as written by Abigail to John Adams "

― David McCullough , John Adams

19 " 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. "

― David McCullough , John Adams

20 " Unfaithfulness in public stations is deeply criminal [he wrote to Abigail]. But there is no encouragement to be faithful. Neither profit, nor honor, nor applause is acquired by faithfulness. . . . There is too much corruption, even in this infant age of our Republic. Virtue is not in fashion. Vice is not infamous. "

― David McCullough , John Adams