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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
Unlimited
Trusted
Presidential
Weakness
Politics
Rather
Unfit
Power
Renders
Men
Wickedness
More quotes by John Adams
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
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
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John Adams
All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects.
John Adams
A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
John Adams
The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.
John Adams
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
John Adams
There's no such thing as a free lunch, unless you have a coupon for a free lunch...or someone gives you a lunch...never mind.
John Adams
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
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
Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart
John Adams
My History of the Jesuits is in four volumes.... This society has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.
John Adams
We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
John Adams
To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
John Adams
Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.
John Adams
When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.
John Adams
What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation: The doctrine of a supreme, intelligent sovereign of the universe, I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
John Adams
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
John Adams
