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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
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
Instrument
Presidential
Excellent
Instruments
Ambition
Certainly
Inflame
Attention
Men
Pens
More quotes by John Adams
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
I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.
John Adams
The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
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
The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.
John Adams
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
John Adams
I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.
John Adams
If we take a survey of the greatest actions...in the world...we shall find the authors of them all to have been persons whose Brains had been shaken out of their natural position.
John Adams
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
The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own.
John Adams
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
John Adams
A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
John Adams
What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?
John Adams
I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.
John Adams
Mr. Jefferson has reason to reflect upon himself. How he will get rid of his remorse in his retirement, I know not. He must know that he leaves the government infinitely worse than he found it, and that from his own error or ignorance.
John Adams
Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
John Adams
[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.
John Adams
The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
John Adams
There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue.
John Adams
