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John Adams

John Adams Quotes

2nd U.S. President

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Famous John Adams Quotes

“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience.”

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Author:John Adams
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“The Constitution is ...the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen”

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Book:A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America: Against the Attack of M. Turgot in His Letter to Dr. Price, Dated the Twenty-second Day of March, 1778
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“The good of the governed is the end, and rewards and punishments are the means, of all government. The government of the supreme and all-perfect Mind, over all his intellectual creation, is by proportioning rewards to piety and virtue, and punishments to disobedience and vice. ... The joys of heaven are prepared, and the horrors of hell in a future state, to render the moral government of the universe perfect and complete. Human government is more or less perfect, as it approaches nearer or diverges further from an imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.”

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Author:John Adams
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“The dons, the bashaws, the grandees, the patricians, the sachems, the nabobs, call them by what names you please, sigh and groan and fret, and sometimes stamp and foam and curse, but all in vain. The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers and destroyers press upon them so fast that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachments is to, grow every day more encroaching; like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our Liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation for the national good.”

IfsShouldMayEndsGovernmentChoicesNationsLosesPartyLibertyDangerFairsVoteSightIndependentElectionMajorityCorruptionDeterminedPurityVotingVirtuousUnfaithfulArtifice
Author:John Adams
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“Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors.”

WishPrinciplesInfluenceFitInstitutionsCuriosityVotingAncestorPredictionsInquiryPosterityResearchersHazardsLiverDampIndustriousArdor
Author:John Adams
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“What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money; and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.”

SaidWould BeAmericaDecisionVirtueJudgingJudgmentFemaleMannersMinistersGovernorsRepresentativesSenatorsPietyDecreeHavocHarlots
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Autobiography (cont.) Diary. Notes of a debate in the Senate of the United States. Essays: On private revenge. On self-delusion. On private revenge. Dissertation on the canon and the feudal law. Instructions of the town of Braintree to their representative, 1765. The Earl of Clarendon to William Pym. Governor Winthrop to Governor Bradford. Instructions of the town of Boston to their representatives, 1768. Instructions of the town of
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“Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either; on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.”

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Book:The Political Writings of John Adams
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“Have you ever found in history, one single example of a nation, thoroughly corrupted, that was afterwards restored to virtue? And without virtue there can be no political liberty.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.”

PeopleWayEnoughSpiritNationsCasesSupportHonestyConstitutionKillingTyrannyTyrantsDoubtedGuardedRobbersFleas
Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 6: Defence of the Constitution IV, Discourses on Davila
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“Conclude not from all this that I have renounced the Christian religion. . . . Far from it. I see in every page something to recommend Christianity in its purity, and something to discredit its corruptions. . . . The ten commandments and the sermon on the mount contain my religion.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six-the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you; he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses; and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.”

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Book:Works: with a life of the author
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“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.”

IfsWholeCoursesInterestPrinciplesIssuesGrowingHonestPaperDelusionViolationAristocracyRobbersDeposits
Book:Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle... Series A-[B]
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“If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 4: Novanglus, Thoughts on Government, Defence of the Constitution I
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“Major Greene this evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the argument he advanced was, "that a mere creature or finite being could not make satisfaction to infinite justice for any crimes," and that "these things are very mysterious." Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity.”

MadeWisdomJesusChristJusticeMysteryCrimeConversationCreaturesMajorsJesus ChristArgumentInfiniteMereSatisfactionMysteriousEveningDivinityAbsurdityFiniteConvenient
Book:Diary and Autobiography of John Adams: Diary, 1755-1770
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“The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.”

ThinkingMenHeartIdeasInspirationChristianityToo MuchDivineHe ManOughtHorrorAddScriptureTreatedHypocrisyResentmentInfidelityDisbeliefTraitorTreason
Author:John Adams
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“The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this earth. Not a Baptism, not a Marriage, not a Sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost... There is no Authority civil or religious: there can be no legitimate Government but what is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All, without it is Rebellion and Perdition, or in more orthodox words Damnation.”

WholeGovernmentEarthChristianReligiousHolyAuthoritySalvationGhostCarrieRebellionOrthodoxSacramentsHoly GhostBaptismDamnationPerditionLegitimate Government
Author:John Adams
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“No truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and a due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a Supreme Being and the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributor of rewards and punishments are conducive equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals and to the well being of communities.”

MenWellsHeartInspirationAgeIndividualCommunityTaughtTruth IsRewardsDuesSupremePunishmentWell BeingRighteousProvidenceVolumeGoverningAcknowledgmentSupreme BeingDistributorsSearchersRectitudeReward And Punishment
Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 9: Letters and State Papers 1799 - 1811
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“Since natural law was thought to be accessible to the ordinary man, the theory invited each juror to inquire for himself whether a particular rule of law was consonant with principles of higher law. This view is reflected in John Adams' statement that it would be an 'absurdity' for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, 'against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.'”

MenWould BeLawNaturalViewsAcceptingOpinionPrinciplesParticularJudgingTheoryHigherJudgmentOrdinaryConscienceStatementsAbsurdityInvitedRule Of LawNatural LawOrdinary ManConsonantsJurorsHigher Law
Author:John Adams
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“If there is ever an amelioration of the condition of mankind, philosophers, theologians, legislators, politicians and moralists will find that the regulation of the press is the most difficult, dangerous and important problem they have to resolve. Mankind cannot now be governed without it, nor at present with it.”

IfsImportantProblemDifficultConditionsMankindDangerousDangerPoliticianPressesPhilosopherResolveRegulationTheologianLegislatorsMoralist
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“We shall convince France and the world, that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and a sense of inferiority, fitted to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character, and interest.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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