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Mr. Jefferson has reason to reflect upon himself. How he will get rid of his remorse in his retirement, I know not. He must know that he leaves the government infinitely worse than he found it, and that from his own error or ignorance.
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
Found
Retirement
Government
Reflect
Reason
Error
Must
Leaves
Errors
Worse
Jefferson
Ignorance
Remorse
Upon
Infinitely
More quotes by John Adams
Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.
John Adams
This is my religion ... joy and exaltation in my own existence ... so go ahead and snarl ... bite ... howl, you Calvinistic divines and all you who say I am no Christian. I say you are not Christian.
John Adams
The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own.
John Adams
. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
John Adams
God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
John Adams
Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.
John Adams
Borrowed eloquence, if it contains as good stuff, is as good as own eloquence
John Adams
They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.
John Adams
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
John Adams
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house, and on ALL that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!
John Adams
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.
John Adams
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
Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.
John Adams
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
The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.
John Adams
Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.
John Adams
