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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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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
Men
Definition
Definitions
Laws
Republican
Law
America
Empire
Government
Empires
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Republic

More quotes by John Adams

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The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.
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
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Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
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Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.
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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To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
John Adams
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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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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Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned.
John Adams
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When I was young, and addicted to reading, I had heard about dancing on the points of metaphysical needles but, by mixing in the world, I found the points of political needles finer and sharper than the metaphysical ones.
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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I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
John Adams
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Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
John Adams
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There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
John Adams
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Riches attract attention, consideration, and congratulations of mankind.
John Adams
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Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
John Adams
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The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
John Adams
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My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
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One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.
John Adams
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What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.
John Adams