“In general, our generals were outgeneralled.”
“Mr. Adams, describing a conversation with Jonathan Sewall in 1774, says: "I answered that the die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country was my unalterable determination."”
“The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith. They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton's universe and Herschell's universe, came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.”
Source: The Portable John Adams
“Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“The ten commandments and the sermon on the mount contain my religion.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“The divine science of government is the science of social happiness, and the blessings of society depend entirely on the constitutions of government.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.”
Source: Letters, Addressed to His Wife
“The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“The arts and sciences, in general, during the three or four last centuries, have had a regular course of progressive improvement. The inventions in mechanic arts, the discoveries in natural philosophy, navigation and commerce, and the advancement of civilization and humanity, have occasioned changes in the condition of the world and the human character which would have astonished the most refined nations of antiquity. A continuation of similar exertions is everyday rendering Europe more and more like one community, or single family.”
Source: The Works of John Adams Vol. 4: Novanglus, Thoughts on Government, Defence of the Constitution I
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature. . . . [In] the formation of the American governments . . . it will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of heaven. . . . These governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
“My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!”
“The public negotiations and secret intrigues of the English (Jews) and the French (Jews) have been employed for centuries in every court and country in Europe. Look back to the history of Spain, Holland, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Italy and Turkey for the last hundred years...all the power of Europe will be continually maneuvering with us to work us into the real or imaginary balance of power.”
“Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests; in short against the gates of earth and hell.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“When I was young, and addicted to reading, I had heard about dancing on the points of metaphysical needles; but, by mixing in the world, I found the points of political needles finer and sharper than the metaphysical ones.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“In days of yore, the poet's pen From wing of bird was plunder'd, Perhaps of goose, but now and then, From Jove's own eagle sunder'd. But now, metallic pens disclose Alone the poet's numbers; In iron inspiration glows, Or with the poet slumbers.”
“The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition.”
Source: John Adams: Writings from the New Nation, 1784-1826
“Government has no Right to hurt a hair of the head of an Atheist, for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices.”
“Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude. I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it.”
“The truth is that neither then nor at any former time, since I had attained my maturity in Age, Reading and reflection had I imbibed any general Prejudice against Kings, or in favour of them. It appeared to me then as it has done ever since, that there is a State of Society in which a Republican Government is the best, and in America the only one.”
Source: 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
“Elections, especially of representatives and counselors, should be annual, there not being in the whole circle of the sciences a maxim more infallible than this, "where annual elections end, there slavery begins." These great men ... should be (chosen) once a year-Like bubbles on the sea of matter bourne, they rise, they break, and to the sea return. This will teach them the great political virtues of humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.”
“There is not an enemy so stout, as to storm and take the fortress of the mind, Unless its infirmity turn traitor, and Fear unbar the gates.”
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.”
“The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused.”
Source: The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections
“There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight.”
Source: The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
“Neither my father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, great grandfather or great grandmother, nor any other relation that I know of, or care a farthing for, has been in England these one hundred and fifty years; so that you see I have not one drop of blood in my veins but what is American.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“When we say God is a spirit, we know what we mean, as well as we do when we say that the pyramids of Egypt are matter. Let us be content, therefore, to believe him to be a spirit, that is, an essence that we know nothing of, in which originally and necessarily reside all energy, all power, all capacity, all activity, all wisdom, all goodness.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth year from its birth, the independence of the United States. A remarkable epoch in the annals of the human race, destined in future history to form the brightest or the blackest page, according to the use or the abuse of those political institutions by which they shall, in time to come, be shaped by the human mind.”
“By my physical constitution I am but an ordinary man ... Yet some great events, some cutting expressions, some mean hypocracies, have at times thrown this assemblage of sloth, sleep, and littleness into rage like a lion.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“A single assembly will never be a steady guardian of the laws, if Machiavel is right, when he says, Men are never good but through necessity: on the contrary, when good and evil are left to their choice, they will not fail to throw every thing into disorder and confusion. Hunger and poverty may make men industrious, but laws only can make them good; for, if men were so of themselves, there would be no occasion for laws; but, as the case is far otherwise, they are absolutely necessary.”
Source: The Works of John Adams Vol. 4: Novanglus, Thoughts on Government, Defence of the Constitution I
“There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic; this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“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 them, and the incorrigible corruption of the people which probably provoked their most atrocious cruelties. Tyranny can scarcely be practised upon a virtuous and wise people.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either.”
Source: The Political Writings of John Adams
“Tis impossible to judge with much Præcision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Diary, with passages from an autobiography. Notes of debates in the Continental Congress, in 1775 and 1776. Autobiography
“Whether they be old or young, rich or poor, high or low, wise or foolish, ignorant or learned, every individual is seen to be strongly actuated by a desire to be seen, heard, talked of, approved and respected... a passion for distinction.”
Source: The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections
“If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?”
“Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty. Perhaps, at first, prejudice, habit, shame or fear, principle or religion, would restrain the poor from attacking the rich, and the idle from usurping on the industrious; but the time would not be long before courage and enterprise would come, and pretexts be invented by degrees, to countenance the majority in dividing all the property among them, or at least, in sharing it equally with its present possessors.”
Source: The Works of John Adams Vol. 6: Defence of the Constitution IV, Discourses on Davila
“Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.”
Source: The Political Writings of John Adams
“Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the world. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest.”
“We may... affirm that the balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land. The only possible way, then, of preserving the balance of power on the side of liberty and public virtue is to make the acquisition of land easy to every member of society; to make a division of the land into small quantities, so that the multitude may be possessed of landed estates.”
Source: John Adams Speaking: Pound's Sources for the Adams Cantos
“If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits... Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.”
“The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
“There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel... Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating the divine authority of those books?”
Source: Ye Will Say I Am No Christian
“He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation.”
“I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits.... Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola's. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.”
“The Church of Rome has made it an article of faith that no man can be saved out of their church, and all other religious sects approach this dreadful opinion in proportion to their ignorance, and the influence of ignorant or wicked priests.”
Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Diary, with passages from an autobiography. Notes of debates in the Continental Congress, in 1775 and 1776. Autobiography
