John Adams Quotes

• Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

  John Adams

  Topics in Education

  Tags in Law

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

  John Adams

  Topics in God, Love, Power, Soul

  Tags in Excellence, Law

• Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

  John Adams

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Liberty, Right, Mankind

• If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?

  John Adams

  Topics in Service

  Tags in Social, Serve, Mankind

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

  John Adams

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Office, Action, Inventions, Imagination, Man

• 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.

  John Adams

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Charm, Political, Catholicism, Spell, Imagination

• Genius is sorrow’s child.

  John Adams

  Topics in Genius, Power

  Tags in Freedom, Sorrow

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Exist, Writing, People, Laugh, Freedom, Thinking

• Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

  John Adams

  Topics in Democracy

  Tags in Government, Political, Aristocracy, Philosophy

• Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

  John Adams

  Topics in Democracy

  Tags in Soon, Political, Philosophy

• 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

  Topics in Politics, Power, Trust

  Tags in Freedom

• Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

  John Adams

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Metaphysics, Intellectual, Freedom

• Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

  John Adams

  Topics in Knowledge, Wisdom

  Tags in Liberty, People, Freedom

• 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

  Topics in America

  Tags in Reverence, Wonder, Settlement, Design

• I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.

  John Adams

  Topics in Fate

  Tags in Ruin, Prefer, Prepare

• While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill – little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

  John Adams

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Government, Thousand, Understood, School

• 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.

  John Adams

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Downright, Honor

• The happiness of society is the end of government.

  John Adams

  Topics in Society

  Tags in Government, Happiness

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

  John Adams

  Topics in Power, Society

  Tags in Authority, Political, Character

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

  John Adams

  Topics in Politics, Society

  Tags in Words, Division, Women, Abuse, Party

John Adams (50)

Birth:	30th October, 1735
Death:	4th July, 1826
Nationality:	American
Profession:	President

About

John Adams was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, United States. He was an American politician who served as the second President of the United States from 1797–1801 and the first Vice President of the United States from 1789–1797. He was a lawyer, diplomat, political theorist, and as a Founding Father, a leader of the movement for American independence from Great Britain. As a diplomat in Europe, he helped negotiate the eventual peace treaty with Great Britain, and acquired vital governmental loans from Amsterdam bankers. He earned a BA degree in 1755 and an MA degree in 1758 both from Harvard University. He is the author of book, entitled Thoughts on Government. He married to Abigail Smith in 1764.

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