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

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

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Riches attract attention, consideration, and congratulations of mankind.
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The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.
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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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Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
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Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.
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My God! This is a revolution! We have to offend someone!
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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.
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The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.
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It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.
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No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'
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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.
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The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.
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Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
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Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
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Shall we have recourse to the art of printing? But this has not destroyed property or aristocracy or corporations or paper wealth in England or America, or diminished the influence of either on the contrary, it has multiplied aristocracy and diminished democracy.
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If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.
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Make Things rather than Persons the subjects of conversations.
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Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
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All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.
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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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