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John Adams

John Adams Quotes

2nd U.S. President

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Famous John Adams Quotes

“The date will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

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Author:John Adams
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“July 4th ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion.”

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Author:John Adams
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“The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.”

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Author:John Adams
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“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 10: Letters and State Papers 1811 - 1825
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“I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.”

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Author:John Adams
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“The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.”

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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 how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”

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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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“Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.”

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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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“Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. What a Utopia! What a paradise this region would be.”

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Book:The Portable John Adams
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“[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.”

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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 divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”

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Author:John Adams
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“The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?”

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Book:The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams
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“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

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Author:John Adams
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“What havoc has been made of books through every century of the Christian era? Where are fifty gospels, condemned as spurious by the bull of Pope Gelasius? Where are the forty wagon-loads of Hebrew manuscripts burned in France, by order of another pope, because suspected of heresy? Remember the 'index expurgatorius', the inquisition, the stake, the axe, the halter and the guillotine.”

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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 general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity”

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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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“Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic 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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“The human understanding is a revelation from its maker, which can never be disputed or doubted. There can be no scepticism, Pyrrhonism, or incredulity or infidelity here. No prophecies, no miracles are necessary to prove this celestical communication. This revelation has made it certain that two and one make three, and that one is not three nor can three be one. We can never be so certain of any prophecy, or the fulfilment of any prophecy, or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle, as we are from the revelation of nature, that is, nature's God, that two and two are equal to four.”

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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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“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!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company-I mean hell.”

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Book:John Adams: a biography in his own words
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“We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.”

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Book:The Works of John Adams Vol. 8: Letters and State Papers 1782 - 1799
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“. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”

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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 ten commandments and the sermon on the mount contain my religion.”

ChristianityTenCommandmentsSermonsFounding Fathers ChristianTen CommandmentsFounding Fathers ReligionSermon On The MountRevolution Founding FathersCode Of Ethics
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 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.”

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Author:John Adams
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“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?”

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Book:Ye Will Say I Am No Christian
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“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

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Book:Works: with a life of the author
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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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“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.”

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Book:The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams
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