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I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.

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
Controlled
Determined
Events
Control
Virtue

More quotes by John Adams

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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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When you see a good move, sit on your hands and find a better one.
John Adams
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Thomas Jefferson survives.
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
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If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
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I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits... Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.
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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.
John Adams
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National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman, and that there is an obligation to perform such a duty absolutely irrespective of party politics or factional differences.
John Adams
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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
John Adams
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In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams
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Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.
John Adams
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But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six-the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
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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.
John Adams
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Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.
John Adams
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Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.
John Adams
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The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence.
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The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.
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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.'
John Adams