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All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

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
Wells
Consists
Well
Ancient
Men
Dignity
Virtue
Modern
Inquirers
Happiness
Pagan
Christian
Declared
Truth
Sober

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Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.
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But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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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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Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws.
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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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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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One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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Mystery is made a convenient Cover for absurdity.
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Yesterday, the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.
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Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.
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Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
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If we take a survey of the greatest actions...in the world...we shall find the authors of them all to have been persons whose Brains had been shaken out of their natural position.
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The deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a place, is without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen.
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America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and accustomed to one general tenor of social usages and customs.
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The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. And the new Governments we are assuming in every part will require a purification from our vices, and an augmentation of our virtues, or there will be no blessings.
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What havoc, said I to myself, would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, and even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots, for money and their judgments, decrees, and decisions, be sold to repay themselves, or, perhaps, to procure the smiles of profligate females.
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Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
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I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize man than any other nation.
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A representative assembly, although extremely well qualified, and absolutely necessary, as a branch of the legislative, is unfit to exercise the executive power, for want of two essential properties, secrecy and dispatch.
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