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Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.

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
Without
Exist
Nation
Virtue
Liberty
Republics
Public
Virtuous
Nations
Republic
Cannot
Private
Government
Foundation

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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly an aristocratic council or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical.
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There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight.
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Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.
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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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The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition.
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To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
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Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned.
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If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?
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Thomas Jefferson survives.
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I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits... Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.
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I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
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One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
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There is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.
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I would quarrel with both parties, and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.
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Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.
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[T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.
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As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
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Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
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