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We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest.

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
Men
Judge
Judging
Hold
Interest
Best

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The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a majority of a popular assembly an aristocratic council or oligarchical junto and a single emperor - equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody and in every respect diabolical.
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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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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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We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!
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The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.
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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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If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
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The appearance of religion only on Sunday proves that it is only an appearance.
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As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it.
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All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects.
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I would quarrel with both parties, and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.
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Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.
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But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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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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I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
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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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Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.
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A government of laws, and not of men.
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Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
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