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

More quotes by John Adams

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Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.
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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.
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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.
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The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.
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Riches attract attention, consideration, and congratulations of mankind.
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I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!
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In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected they will either be made by the member to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influence to fleece the many who are poor.
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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
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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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Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.
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I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.
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All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
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Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart
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They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.
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Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.
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I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.
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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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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.
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When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.
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I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame
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