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

John Adams

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John Adams
Age: 90 †
Born: 1735
Born: October 19
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
2Nd U.S. President
Diplomat
Lawyer
Political Philosopher
Politician
Statesperson
Braintree
Massachusetts
President Adams
J. Adams
President John Adams
Laws
Law
Peace
War
Power
Always
Violating
Thinking
Thinks
Service

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Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
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I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.
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[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.
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No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'
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I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame
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The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
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[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.
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Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart
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Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.
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The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
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The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.
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Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.
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During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.
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Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
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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.
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Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.
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Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence
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When I was young, and addicted to reading, I had heard about dancing on the points of metaphysical needles but, by mixing in the world, I found the points of political needles finer and sharper than the metaphysical ones.
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The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly an aristocratic council or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical.
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What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.
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