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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.

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
Men
Thousand
Odious
Love
Fight
Leagues
Choices
Charms
Fighting
Unnatural
Government
Managed
Persons
Charm
Whole
League
Confide
Something
Choice
Revere

More quotes by John Adams

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I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.
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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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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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Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.
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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.
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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.
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If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?
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There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
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Riches attract attention, consideration, and congratulations of mankind.
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There is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.
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There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue.
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Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.
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Negro slavery is an evil of colossal magnitude.
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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.
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Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.
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Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.
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My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
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Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
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