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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.

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
Action
Actions
Persons
Whose
Find
Position
Take
Greatest
Survey
World
Shall
Shaken
Brain
Surveys
Natural
Authors
Inspirational
Brains

More quotes by John Adams

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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.
John Adams
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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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America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs.
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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.
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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.
John Adams
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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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Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.
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Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence: nor is the law less stable than the fact.
John Adams
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I shall have the liberty to think for myself.
John Adams
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If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
John Adams
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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.
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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Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.
John Adams
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I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life, would allow and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen.
John Adams
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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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Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.
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It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.
John Adams