Quote

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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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
America
Slow
Fleet
Body
Six
Sailors
May
Wait
Sailor
Swiftest
Must
Horse
Sailing
Convoy
Great
Large
Horses
Unwieldy
Even
Progress
Coach
Quickened
Like
Waiting
Pace
Dullest
Keep
Coaches
Slowest

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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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Riches attract attention, consideration, and congratulations of mankind.
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
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They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
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I consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for public service.
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Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.
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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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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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I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
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As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him.
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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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I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer.
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The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own.
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Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
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If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.
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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight.
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If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
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[T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.
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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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