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It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary 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
Madness
Ones
Create
Evil
Anticipate
Evils
Imaginary
Folly
More quotes by John Adams
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John Adams
A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition.
John Adams
The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.
John Adams
The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity
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
[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.
John Adams
I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
John Adams
National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman, and that there is an obligation to perform such a duty absolutely irrespective of party politics or factional differences.
John Adams
The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.
John Adams
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
John Adams
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
John Adams
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
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
[You have Rights] antecedent to all earthly governments: Rights, that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws Rights, derived from the Great Legislator of the universe.
John Adams
Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.
John Adams
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.
John Adams
Resistance to sudden violence, for the preservation not only of my person, my limbs, and life, but of my property, is an indisputable right of nature which I have never surrendered to the public by the compact of society, and which perhaps, I could not surrender if I would.
John Adams
Farther I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites . . . & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.
John Adams
It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.
John Adams
