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I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame

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
Desire
Engaged
Even
Envy
Never
Affair
Ambition
Fame
Public
Avarice
Pleasure
Jealousy
Interest
Affairs

More quotes by John Adams

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In politics the middle way is none at all.
John Adams
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[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.
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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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As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
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National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman, and that there is an obligation to perform such a duty absolutely irrespective of party politics or factional differences.
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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.
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The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
John Adams
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I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
John Adams
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We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
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Ideology is the science of idiots.
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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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
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Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence
John Adams
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Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
John Adams
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Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
John Adams
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I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.
John Adams
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All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams
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If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
John Adams
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I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer.
John Adams
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
John Adams