John Adams quotes

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.

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.

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.

A government of laws, and not of men.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.

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.

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

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.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

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.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

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.

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

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.

I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.

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.

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

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.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

A government of laws, and not of men.

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.