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When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

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
Cannot
Laughing
Existed
Ever
Liberty
Hundreds
Must
Shall
Speaking
Writing
Talk
Exists
Thing
Freedom
Laughter
Years
Hope
Laugh
Thinking
Speak
Exist
People
Write
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More quotes by John Adams

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I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits... Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.
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People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.
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Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.
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There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.
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Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
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I am quite content to come home and go to Farming, be a select Man, and owe no Man any Thing but good Will. There I can get a little health and teach my Boys to be Lawyers.
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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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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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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
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Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.
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I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
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Thomas Jefferson survives.
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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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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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Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence
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Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.
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The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.
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I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.
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The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation: The doctrine of a supreme, intelligent sovereign of the universe, I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
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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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