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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.

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
Politics
Extravagant
Political
Render
Popularity
Country
Popular
Way
Easily
Good
Road
Advantage
Public

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Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
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Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.
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People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.
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I consider a decent respect for Christianity among the best recommendations for public service.
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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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A government of laws, and not of men.
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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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We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.
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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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If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?
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If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches, grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.
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. . . Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.
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Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned.
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When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
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[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.
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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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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.
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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.
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I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on this house, and on ALL that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!
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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.
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