Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by John Adams

Image
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams
Image
America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs.
John Adams
Image
Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
John Adams
Image
We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
John Adams
Image
Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests in short against the gates of earth and hell.
John Adams
Image
A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
John Adams
Image
We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
John Adams
Image
Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
John Adams
Image
I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
John Adams
Image
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
Image
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
John Adams
Image
This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams
Image
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
Image
The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.
John Adams
Image
Numberless have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in themselves but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and establishment of the canon and the feudal law.
John Adams
Image
[You have Rights] antecedent to all earthly governments: Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws Rights, derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
John Adams
Image
When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.
John Adams
Image
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
John Adams
Image
The appearance of religion only on Sunday proves that it is only an appearance.
John Adams