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If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.

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
Spring
Justifiable
Glory
Benevolence
Pride
Springs
Information
Grandeur
President
Innocence
Power
Riches
Ever
Conviction
National
Excusable

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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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I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer.
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One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.
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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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If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?
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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.
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The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.
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Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.
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Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
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Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
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Virtue is not always amiable.
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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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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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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
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The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
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Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.
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Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact.
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One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
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In politics the middle way is none at all.
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While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
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