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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
America
Empire
Government
Empires
Good
Republic
Men
Definition
Definitions
Laws
Republican
Law
More quotes by John Adams
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
I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
John Adams
All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.
John Adams
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
John Adams
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
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
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
. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
John Adams
Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests in short against the gates of earth and hell.
John Adams
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
I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house, and on ALL that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!
John Adams
If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?
John Adams
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
Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.
John Adams
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
It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.
John Adams
Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education...to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher.
John Adams
People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.
John Adams
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
John Adams
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
John Adams
