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

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There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.
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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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You are apprehensive of monarchy I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.
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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
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Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.
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It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation.
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Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.
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Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
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Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.
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What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.
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Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
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I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
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Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence.
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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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I shall have the liberty to think for myself.
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Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact.
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[T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.
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. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
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