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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.

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
Judging
Unless
Education
Wisdom
Reading
Enlarged
Must
Literacy
Mind
Opened
Men
Judge

More quotes by John Adams

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The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.
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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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No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'
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Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.
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I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.
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Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would.
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The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity
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Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.
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It is much easier to pull down a government, in such a conjuncture of affairs as we have seen, than to build up, at such a season as the present.
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If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
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The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.
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One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.
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Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education...to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher.
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[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men.
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There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
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I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.
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This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!
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This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
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I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
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The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.
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