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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

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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
Men
Conceived
Insignificant
Invention
Office
Imagination
History
Ever
Country
Contrived

More quotes by John Adams

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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.
John Adams
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I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
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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.
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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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The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
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There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution.
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If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?
John Adams
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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
John Adams
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The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.
John Adams
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But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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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.
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I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
John Adams
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The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.
John Adams
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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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A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual subject to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments. And all these errors ought to be corrected and defects supplied by some controlling power.
John Adams
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They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.
John Adams
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Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight and the westsight that appeared in that august assembly.
John Adams
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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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The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.
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