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While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

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
Years
Four
Standstill
Society
Practiced
Three
Sciences
Political
Advanced
Littles
Understood
Government
Thousand
Better
Liberty
Little
Politics

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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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Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
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What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
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I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house, and on ALL that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!
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The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.
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Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.
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Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
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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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All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
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This is my religion ... joy and exaltation in my own existence ... so go ahead and snarl ... bite ... howl, you Calvinistic divines and all you who say I am no Christian. I say you are not Christian.
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Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
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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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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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Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
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Thomas Jefferson survives.
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The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.
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I shall have the liberty to think for myself.
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This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!
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We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest.
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If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
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