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It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.

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
Power
Renders
Men
Wickedness
Unlimited
Trusted
Presidential
Weakness
Politics
Rather
Unfit

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Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.
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Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
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I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation.
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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.
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Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
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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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Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
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This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!
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Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws.
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Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
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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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[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.
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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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The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.
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Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.
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Thomas Jefferson survives.
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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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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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The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own.
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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.
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