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Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
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
Society
Increase
Power
Importance
Character
Demand
Authority
Corrupts
Leadership
Increases
Position
Persistence
Rights
Demands
Moral
Morality
More quotes by John Adams
Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
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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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Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.
John Adams
A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
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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.
John Adams
Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
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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They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.
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My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
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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The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition.
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There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight.
John Adams
As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it.
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Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education...to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher.
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The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or there will be no blessings.
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Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
John Adams
God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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