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Power must never be trusted without a check.
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
Checks
Power
Without
Must
Never
Trusted
Check
More quotes by John Adams
My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
John Adams
Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.
John Adams
If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.
John Adams
Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.
John Adams
I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits... Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.
John Adams
Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
John Adams
The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one End to the other. The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Spring General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his Rod - and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War.
John Adams
A government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams
What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.
John Adams
A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
John Adams
[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson survives.
John Adams
The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
John Adams
The appearance of religion only on Sunday proves that it is only an appearance.
John Adams
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
John Adams
Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.
John Adams
