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Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.

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
Live
Independence
Without
Exist
Move
Virtue
Liberty
Moving
Body
Soul

More quotes by 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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Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.
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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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I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation.
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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
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The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.
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I am quite content to come home and go to Farming, be a select Man, and owe no Man any Thing but good Will. There I can get a little health and teach my Boys to be Lawyers.
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One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
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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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Historically, usury was defined as any interest whatever on an unproductive loan.Our whole banking system I have ever abhorred, I continue to abhor, and I shall die abhorring.
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The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
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.
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
John Adams
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My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
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There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
John Adams
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All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams
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Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
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
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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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I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
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