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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
Reading
Mixing
Found
Addicted
Political
Metaphysical
Young
Points
World
Dancing
Dance
Sharper
Ones
Finer
Heard
Needles
More quotes by John Adams
Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.
John Adams
Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.
John Adams
If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.
John Adams
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.
John Adams
Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
John Adams
It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.
John Adams
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity
John Adams
When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
John Adams
Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
John Adams
[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
Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude. I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it.
John Adams
We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands we have a check upon two branches of the legislature.
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
I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life, would allow and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
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
There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution.
John Adams
