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

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The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.
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The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.
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Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
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Public business must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or other. If wise man decline, others will not if honest man refuse it, others will not.
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The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity
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I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
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Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
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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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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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Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.
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We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
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A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual subject to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments. And all these errors ought to be corrected and defects supplied by some controlling power.
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
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During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.
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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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I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
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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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The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition.
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The Christian religion is, above all the religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern times, the religion of wisdom, virtue, equity and humanity.
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