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John Adams

John Adams Quotes

2nd U.S. President

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Famous John Adams Quotes

“The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 6: Defence of the Constitution IV, Discourses on Davila
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“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 Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

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Author:John Adams
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“You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”

ThinkingShouldWellsMeanI CanEndsStatesLightSupportBloodTrustCostGloryIndependenceTreasureEnthusiasmRaysTrust In GodDeclarationToilPosterityGloomDeclaration Of IndependenceTransactionsJuly 4th 1776Revolution Founding FathersRue
Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 1: Life of John Adams
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“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”

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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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“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, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.”

IfsShouldMindChildrenCareSufferingCompassionVirtueMinesIndustryActivityAmbitionCapacityOur ChildrenInjusticeFacultyContemptCreepsInfancyHabitualMeannessInhumanityAccelerateAbhorrence
Book:The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
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“...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 once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.”

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Book:The Letters of John and Abigail Adams
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“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”

IfsWorldWould BeReligionReligiousLibertyAtheismAtheistBeing The BestDelusionInsightfulFoundersSecularAgnosticFoundingChurch And StateFreedom And LibertySeparation Of Church And StateFreedom LibertyOur Founding FathersReligious FreedomFounding Fathers ChristianUs Founding FathersFounding Fathers ReligionSeparation Between Church And StateFounding Fathers ReligiousIf There Is A GodReligion GodReligious LibertyFounding Fathers Anti ReligionFounding Fathers Of AmericaFounding AmericaAmerican Founding FathersFounding Fathers AtheistAnti ReligiousDeismThere Being No GodChristianity From Founding FathersChristian AtheistReligion ChristianChristian FatherChristian HeritageAmerican LibertyReligion And GovernmentAnti ChristianChristian RightAgainst ReligionAnti ReligionGod DelusionFaith ReligionRevolution Founding FathersReligion In SocietyChristian GodGreatest AtheistFree Thinkers
Book:The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams
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“[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 their blood.”

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Book:An Eulogy on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, etc
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“We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular governments. But there is great danger that those governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear that in every assembly, members will obtain an influence by noise, not sense. By meanness, not greatness. By ignorance, not learning. By contracted hearts, not large souls.”

HeartMaySoulGovernmentInfluenceDangerGreatnessIgnorancePleaseMembersNoiseGrantsAssemblyMeanness
Book:Papers of John Adams
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“And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people who have a right from the frame of their nature to knowledge, as their great Creator who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings and a desire to know. But besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible divine right to the most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.”

PeopleKnowsKindMeanDoeCharacterDesireGivenUnderstandingEducationLibertyDivineCreatorVainRulersEnviedDivine RightGeneral Knowledge
Book:The Portable John Adams
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