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The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

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
Idea
Property
Admitted
Force
Protect
Anarchy
Moments
Liberty
Founders
Ideas
Public
Founding
Justice
Tyranny
Law
Economics
Society
Capitalism
Moment
Sacred
Commence

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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.
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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.
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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
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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.
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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.
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I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: 'Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800'.
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Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
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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.
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What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
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If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.
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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.
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Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
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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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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.
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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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Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
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All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.
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