Quote

When men know not what to do, they ought not to do they know not what

Abigail Adams

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Abigail Adams
Age: 73 †
Born: 1744
Born: November 22
Died: 1818
Died: October 28
First Lady
Politician
Weymouth
Massachusetts
Abigail Smith
Abigail Smith Adams
Ought
Men

More quotes by Abigail Adams

Image
If we expect to inherit the blessings of our Fathers, we should return a little more to their primitive Simplicity of Manners.
Abigail Adams
Image
What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind.
Abigail Adams
Image
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.
Abigail Adams
Image
Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.
Abigail Adams
Image
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.
Abigail Adams
Image
To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.
Abigail Adams
Image
Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.
Abigail Adams
Image
What is the history of mighty kingdoms and nations, but a detail of the ravages and cruelties of the powerful over the weak?
Abigail Adams
Image
History is not a web woven with innocent hands. Among all the causes which degrade and demoralize men, power is the most constant and most active.
Abigail Adams
Image
A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world.
Abigail Adams
Image
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.
Abigail Adams
Image
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.
Abigail Adams
Image
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.'
Abigail Adams
Image
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!
Abigail Adams
Image
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.
Abigail Adams
Image
But let no person say what they would or would not do, since we are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.
Abigail Adams
Image
Many of our disappointments and much of our unhappiness arise from our forming false notions of things and persons.
Abigail Adams
Image
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.
Abigail Adams
Image
I acknowledge myself a unitarian
Abigail Adams
Image
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
Abigail Adams