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When I was young, and addicted to reading, I had heard about dancing on the points of metaphysical needles but, by mixing in the world, I found the points of political needles finer and sharper than the metaphysical ones.

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
Dance
Sharper
Ones
Finer
Heard
Needles
Reading
Mixing
Found
Addicted
Political
Metaphysical
Young
Points
World
Dancing

More quotes by John Adams

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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.
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We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest.
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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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Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.
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A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual subject to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments. And all these errors ought to be corrected and defects supplied by some controlling power.
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Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
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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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It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.
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The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
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You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
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This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!
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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 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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You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen.
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We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
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It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.
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As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it.
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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.
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As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
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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.
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