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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!

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
Offend
Revolution
Religion
Someone

More quotes by John Adams

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The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.
John Adams
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They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight and the westsight that appeared in that august assembly.
John Adams
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I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits... Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.
John Adams
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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
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Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
John Adams
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Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.
John Adams
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Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.
John Adams
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My History of the Jesuits is in four volumes.... This society has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.
John Adams
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The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
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Virtue is not always amiable.
John Adams
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Numberless have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in themselves but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and establishment of the canon and the feudal law.
John Adams
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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.
John Adams
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Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.
John Adams
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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
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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.
John Adams
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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?
John Adams