All John Adams Quotes
There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
John Adams
86% of people like this quote
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
John Adams
77% of people like this quote
The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.
John Adams
69% of people like this quote
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
60% of people like this quote
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
John Adams
56% of people like this quote
I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
John Adams
56% of people like this quote
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.
John Adams
55% of people like this quote
My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
54% of people like this quote
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
John Adams
52% of people like this quote
Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
John Adams
51% of people like this quote
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
John Adams
51% of people like this quote
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