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

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
Government
Division
Great
Instrument
Abuse
Instruments
Party
Chicanery
Society
Sophistry
Words
Faction
Political
Factions

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Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned.
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In politics the middle way is none at all.
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I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!
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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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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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[You have Rights] antecedent to all earthly governments: Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws Rights, derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
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Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
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I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
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Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
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We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
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Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.
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It is much easier to pull down a government, in such a conjuncture of affairs as we have seen, than to build up, at such a season as the present.
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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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Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.
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The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.
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If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.
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