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Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

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
Humankind
Virtue
Education
Cannot
Dogmatism
Human
Confine
Humans
Superstition
Must
Superstitions
Mind
Loose

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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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We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest.
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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.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
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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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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.
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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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Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.
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As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it.
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There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue.
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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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There is not an enemy so stout, as to storm and take the fortress of the mind, Unless its infirmity turn traitor, and Fear unbar the gates.
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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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Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
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Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.
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To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
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In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected they will either be made by the member to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influence to fleece the many who are poor.
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The appearance of religion only on Sunday proves that it is only an appearance.
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