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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.

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
Sensible
Vice
Folly
Vanity
Vices
Cardinal
Danger
Cardinals
Company
Continual
Chase

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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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He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation.
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I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
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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!
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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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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 had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
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Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
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Set before us the conduct of our own British ancestors, who defended for us the inherent rights of mankind against foreign and domestic tyrants and usurpers, against arbitrary kings and cruel priests in short against the gates of earth and hell.
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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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During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.
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Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.
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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.
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Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
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Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.
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This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
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A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
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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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Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
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[J]udges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men.
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