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I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.

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
Liberty
Permit
Law
Definition
Whatever
Define
Seems
Definitions
Power
Civil
Doe
Laws
Done
Meaning
Satisfactory
Would
Seem
Permits

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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.
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They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.
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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.
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The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.
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Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.
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During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.
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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?
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Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.
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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.
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God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
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A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
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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.
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Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
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Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.
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Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
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Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
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Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
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I am quite content to come home and go to Farming, be a select Man, and owe no Man any Thing but good Will. There I can get a little health and teach my Boys to be Lawyers.
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I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
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I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation.
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