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

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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
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I consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for public service.
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Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.
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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.
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Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.
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The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
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There is not an enemy so stout, as to storm and take the fortress of the mind, Unless its infirmity turn traitor, and Fear unbar the gates.
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Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.
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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.
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You are apprehensive of monarchy I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.
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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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Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.
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It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.
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We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
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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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To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
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When you see a good move, sit on your hands and find a better one.
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The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.
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