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Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.

Abigail Adams

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Abigail Adams
Age: 73 †
Born: 1744
Born: November 22
Died: 1818
Died: October 28
First Lady
Politician
Weymouth
Massachusetts
Abigail Smith
Abigail Smith Adams
Politics
Power
Hard
Things
Like
Liable
Arbitrary
Broken

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The only chance for much intellectual improvement in the female sex, was to be found in the families of the educated class and in occasional intercourse with the learned.
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Great necessities call out great virtues.
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I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.
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Let your observations and comparisons produce in your mind an abhorrence of domination and power, the parent of slavery, ignorance, and barbarism, which places man upon a level with his fellow tenants of the woods.
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Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.
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A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world.
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I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'
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Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.
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My Dear Son... remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.
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Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.
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It is to me a most affecting thing to hear myself prayed for, in particular as I do every day in the week, and disposes me to bear with more composure, some disagreeable circumstances that attend my situation.
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How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking!
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The Character which a youth acquires in the early part of his Life is of great importance towards his future prosperity-one false step may prove irretrievable to his future usefulness.
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I acknowledge myself a unitarian - Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father. ... There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three.
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If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.
Abigail Adams
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The great fish swallow up the small and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government.
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We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
Abigail Adams
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If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.
Abigail Adams
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Great learning and superior abilities...will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.
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Every object is beautiful in motion a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point
Abigail Adams