Quote

Ideology is the science of idiots.

John Adams

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Idiot
Science
Idiots
Ideology

More quotes by John Adams

Image
A government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams
Image
In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams
Image
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams
Image
The deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a place, is without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen.
John Adams
Image
The appearance of religion only on Sunday proves that it is only an appearance.
John Adams
Image
We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!
John Adams
Image
Power must never be trusted without a check.
John Adams
Image
It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.
John Adams
Image
I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.
John Adams
Image
When I was young, and addicted to reading, I had heard about dancing on the points of metaphysical needles but, by mixing in the world, I found the points of political needles finer and sharper than the metaphysical ones.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams
Image
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
Image
I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.
John Adams
Image
I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame
John Adams
Image
The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.
John Adams
Image
The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.
John Adams
Image
Numberless have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in themselves but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and establishment of the canon and the feudal law.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams