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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.

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
Rights
Englishmen
Law
Derived
History
Parliament
Would
King
Tradition
Kings
Liberty
Study
Secured

More quotes by John Adams

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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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There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams
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If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.
John Adams
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My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
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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
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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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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.
John Adams
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Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
John Adams
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When you see a good move, sit on your hands and find a better one.
John Adams
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Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.
John Adams
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There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.
John Adams
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Virtue is not always amiable.
John Adams
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The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one End to the other. The Essence of the whole will be that Dr Franklins electrical Rod, Smote the Earth and out Spring General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his Rod - and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy Negotiations Legislation and War.
John Adams
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One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
John Adams
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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
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The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or there will be no blessings.
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.
John Adams
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When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
John Adams
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This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
John Adams
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Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart
John Adams