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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

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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
Social
Foundations
Government
Combination
Human
Morality
Humans
Foundation
Virtue
Society
Republicanism
Free
Combinations
Religion
Felicity

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If we take a survey of the greatest actions...in the world...we shall find the authors of them all to have been persons whose Brains had been shaken out of their natural position.
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We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
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Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
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Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
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Virtue is not always amiable.
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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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The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
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Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.
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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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Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.
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The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
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[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men.
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Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.
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Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
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Ideology is the science of idiots.
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This is my religion ... joy and exaltation in my own existence ... so go ahead and snarl ... bite ... howl, you Calvinistic divines and all you who say I am no Christian. I say you are not Christian.
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We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
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Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States ... I have, throughout my whole life, held the practice of slavery in ... abhorrence.
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The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.
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No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'
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