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Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.

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
Atheism
Deism
Mystery
Atheistic
Jesus
Convenient
Made
Absurdity
Founding
Divinity
Cover
Atheist

More quotes by John Adams

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All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams
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Numberless have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in themselves but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and establishment of the canon and the feudal law.
John Adams
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The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.
John Adams
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I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
John Adams
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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.'
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
John Adams
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Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws.
John Adams
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The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly an aristocratic council or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical.
John Adams
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Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
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.
John Adams
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Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.
John Adams
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The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
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If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.
John Adams
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The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.
John Adams
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What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.
John Adams
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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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But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six-the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
John Adams