Quote

The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.

John Adams

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Preaching
Ecclesiastical
Failed
Councils
Whenever
Frightful
Atheism
Diabolical
Nature
Exceedingly
Thought
Malice
Good
Council
Never
Engines
Terrify

More quotes by John Adams

Image
Human passions unbridled by morality and religion...would break the stronges cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.
John Adams
Image
One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.
John Adams
Image
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
Image
[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.
John Adams
Image
When you see a good move, sit on your hands and find a better one.
John Adams
Image
The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
John Adams
Image
My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.
John Adams
Image
Numberless have been the systems of iniquity contrived by the great for the gratification of this passion in themselves but in none of them were they ever more successful than in the invention and establishment of the canon and the feudal law.
John Adams
Image
Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.
John Adams
Image
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
Image
Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.
John Adams
Image
Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey.
John Adams
Image
No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'
John Adams
Image
Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
John Adams
Image
As the safety and prosperity of nations ultimately and essentially depend on the protection and the blessing of Almighty God, and the national acknowledgment of this truth is not only an indispensable duty which the people owe to Him.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams
Image
Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude. I am therefore utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territory, and heartily wish that every Constitutional measure may be adopted for the preservation of it.
John Adams
Image
You are apprehensive of monarchy I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.
John Adams
Image
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.
John Adams
Image
I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.
John Adams