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Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

John Quincy Adams

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John Quincy Adams
Age: 80 †
Born: 1767
Born: July 11
Died: 1848
Died: February 23
6Th U.S. President
Diarist
Diplomat
Lawyer
Politician
Statesperson
Braintree
Massachusetts
John Q. Adams
President Adams
John Adams
J. Q. Adams
J. Adams
JQA
Arbitrary
Preserve
Preserves
Tyranny
Maxim
Liberty
Shoots
Power
Bud
Ever
Maxims
People
Liberties

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There is nothing so deep and nothing so shallow which political enmity will not turn to account.
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So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.
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My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away... the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances His disciples in asserting that He was God.
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Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel.
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Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations.
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To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs.
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[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.
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I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service and knowing that except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain, with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit with humble but fearless confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.
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Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long, 'Tis not with me exactly so But 'tis so in the song. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more.
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America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
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A gentleman of one of the first fortunes upon the continent...sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the cause of his country.
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Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.
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Religion, charity, pure benevolence, and morals, mingled up with superstitious rites and ferocious cruelty, form in their combination institutions the most powerful and the most pernicious that have ever afflicted mankind.
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A man's diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.
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Whether to the nation or to the state, no service can be or ever will be rendered by a more able or a more faithful public servant.
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The law is an artificial human construct, quite arbitrary, and of absolutely no use anywhere else but in a court of law!
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I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.
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Westward the star of empire takes its way.
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When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts.
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