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

More quotes by John Adams

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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 accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.
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A representative assembly, although extremely well qualified, and absolutely necessary, as a branch of the legislative, is unfit to exercise the executive power, for want of two essential properties, secrecy and dispatch.
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To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
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When you see a good move, sit on your hands and find a better one.
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Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
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We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest.
John Adams
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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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He is too illiterate, unread, unlearned for his station and reputation.
John Adams
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Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. What a Utopia! What a paradise this region would be.
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Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart
John Adams
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Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
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Virtue is not always amiable.
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[I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.
John Adams
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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
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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?
John Adams
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The idea of infidelity [a disbelief in the inspiration of the Scriptures or the divine origin of Christianity] cannot be treated with too much resentment or too much horror. The man who can think of it with patience is a traitor in his heart and ought to be execrated [denounced] as one who adds the deepest hypocrisy to the blackest treason.
John Adams
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The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.
John Adams
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But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
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The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity
John Adams