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[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.

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
Virtue
Founding
Liberty
Establish
Alone
Morality
Freedom
Foundation
Upon
Constitution
Free
Pure
Religion
Principles
Securely
Stand
Founders

More quotes by John Adams

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You are apprehensive of monarchy I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.
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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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[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.
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The deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a place, is without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen.
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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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The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
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I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
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I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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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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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
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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.
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Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.
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The appearance of religion only on Sunday proves that it is only an appearance.
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There is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.
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Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
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This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
John Adams
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There is not an enemy so stout, as to storm and take the fortress of the mind, Unless its infirmity turn traitor, and Fear unbar the gates.
John Adams