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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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The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.
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I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.
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Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
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Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence
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Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.
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The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.
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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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[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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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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National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman, and that there is an obligation to perform such a duty absolutely irrespective of party politics or factional differences.
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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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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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Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.
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Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
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All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects.
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Yesterday, the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.
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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
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The government of the United States of America has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.
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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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