“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.”
Other John Quincy Adams Quotes
Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
John Quincy Adams 
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The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams
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America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
John Quincy Adams
54% of people like this quote