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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.

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
Great
Teaching
Made
Higher
Ranks
Things
Teacher
Nearer
System
Memorable
Education
Lower
Society
Accomplished
Change
Raise
Must
Raises

More quotes by John Adams

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We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
John Adams
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The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.
John Adams
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I consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for public service.
John Adams
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[You have Rights] antecedent to all earthly governments: Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws Rights, derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
John Adams
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During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.
John Adams
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As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it.
John Adams
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Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John Adams
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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?
John Adams
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A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
John Adams
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This is my religion ... joy and exaltation in my own existence ... so go ahead and snarl ... bite ... howl, you Calvinistic divines and all you who say I am no Christian. I say you are not Christian.
John Adams
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
John Adams
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All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.
John Adams
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Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
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