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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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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
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Aimed
Dictate
Popularity
Necessary
Ought
Virtue
Wisdom
Practice
Inmost

More quotes by John Adams

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What is to become of an independent statesman, one who will bow the knee to no idol, who will worship nothing as a divinity but truth, virtue, and his country? I will tell you he will be regarded more by posterity than those who worship hounds and horses and although he will not make his own fortune, he will make the fortune of his country.
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No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'
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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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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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The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
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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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Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.
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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.
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Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
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This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!
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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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I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame
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While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.
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Virtue is not always amiable.
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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
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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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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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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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