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

More quotes by John Adams

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The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.
John Adams
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Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
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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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Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.
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There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.
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I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
John Adams
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Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
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People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.
John Adams
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There is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.
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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
John Adams
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But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six-the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
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The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation: The doctrine of a supreme, intelligent sovereign of the universe, I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.
John Adams
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
John Adams
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The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
John Adams
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To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
John Adams
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I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
John Adams
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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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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The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.
John Adams
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The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own.
John Adams