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

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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned.
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The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
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To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
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All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
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God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
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There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.
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The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.
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I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
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What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
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We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
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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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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
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I am quite content to come home and go to Farming, be a select Man, and owe no Man any Thing but good Will. There I can get a little health and teach my Boys to be Lawyers.
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The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly an aristocratic council or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical.
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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.
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Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.
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Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude. I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it.
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If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?
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What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.
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