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A representative assembly, although extremely well qualified, and absolutely necessary, as a branch of the legislative, is unfit to exercise the executive power, for want of two essential properties, secrecy and dispatch.

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
Wells
Essentials
Executive
Dispatch
Well
Although
Qualified
Unfit
Property
Representatives
Legislative
Absolutely
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Necessary
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Representative
Exercise
Separation
Secrecy
Two
Extremely
Assembly
Power
Essential
Branch

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Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
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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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Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
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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.
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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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I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.
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Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.
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I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
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The appearance of religion only on Sunday proves that it is only an appearance.
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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!
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America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs.
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The die is cast. The people have passed the river and cut away the bridge. Last night three cargoes of tea were emptied into the harbor. This is the grandest event which has ever yet happened since the controversy with Britain opened.
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If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.
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Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.
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This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
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It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.
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Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.
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In days of yore, the poet's pen From wing of bird was plunder'd, Perhaps of goose, but now and then, From Jove's own eagle sunder'd. But now, metallic pens disclose Alone the poet's numbers In iron inspiration glows, Or with the poet slumbers.
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