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Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.

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
Wisdom
Form
Power
Human
Humans
Benevolence
Directed
Dangerous

More quotes by John Adams

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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?
John Adams
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
John Adams
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
John Adams
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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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But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
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Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.
John Adams
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I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
John Adams
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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
John Adams
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My History of the Jesuits is in four volumes.... This society has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.
John Adams
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When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
John Adams
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I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!
John Adams
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Virtue is not always amiable.
John Adams
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Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.
John Adams
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Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
John Adams
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In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams
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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'.
John Adams
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I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
John Adams
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The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one End to the other. The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Spring General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his Rod - and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams