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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.

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
Government
Prerogative
Great
Swallow
People
Eager
Fish
Fishes
Small
Prerogatives
Rights
Strenuous
Power
Vested

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The house shakes...with the roar of the cannon. No sleep for me tonight.
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I can hear of the brilliant accomplishments of any of my sex with pleasure and rejoice in that liberality of sentiment which acknowledges them.
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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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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.
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These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
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If we expect to inherit the blessings of our Fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive Simplicity of Manners.
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Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex.
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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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What is meat for one is not for another--no accounting for fancy.
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I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature.
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Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.
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O, I have read his Heart in his wicked eyes many a time. The very devil is in them.
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If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.
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Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.
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A people may let a king fall, yet still remain a people, but if a king let his people slip from him, he is no longer a king.
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To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.
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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
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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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Heaven grant me that I may thus rejoice in my children, thus see them ornaments to their Country, and blessings to their parents.
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