Quote

Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise man decline, others will not if honest man refuse it, others will not.

John Adams

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Wise
Public
Business
Others
Government
Decline
Done
Refuse
Must
Honest
Always
Somebody

More quotes by John Adams

Image
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
Image
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
John Adams
Image
My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
Image
One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
John Adams
Image
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
Image
I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation.
John Adams
Image
The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
John Adams
Image
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity
John Adams
Image
When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
John Adams
Image
Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams
Image
There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution.
John Adams
Image
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
Image
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
Image
[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.
John Adams
Image
I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
John Adams
Image
Thomas Jefferson survives.
John Adams
Image
[You have Rights] antecedent to all earthly governments: Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws Rights, derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
John Adams
Image
Historically, usury was defined as any interest whatever on an unproductive loan.Our whole banking system I have ever abhorred, I continue to abhor, and I shall die abhorring.
John Adams
Image
The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one End to the other. The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Spring General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his Rod - and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War.
John Adams