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The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.

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
Human
Governments
Humans
Former
Lived
Short
Democracy
Fluctuating
Age
Unstable
Experience
Shown
Government
Ages

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A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair.
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To believe that everyone is honest is folly, but to believe that no one is honest is worse.
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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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All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
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I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.
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I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong.
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All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.
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A barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name.... One of our tribe of great men who turn disease to commodity...he craves the sympathy for sickness as a portion of his glory.
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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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Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize Man still is bound to rescue or maintain That nature's God commands the slave to rise, And on the oppressor's head to break the chain. Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, Till not a slave shall on this earth by found.
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The Sermon on the Mount commands me to lay up for myself treasures, not upon earth, but in Heaven. My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ.
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Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel.
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Religious discord has lost her sting the cumbrous weapons of theological warfare are antiquated: the field of politics supplies the alchymists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instruments of cruelty and destruction.
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America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
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The American continents, by the free and independent condition that they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation byany European powers? In the wars of the Europeanpowers inmattersrelating to ourselves, we have never taken any part nor does it comport with our policy to do so.
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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 preserve, to improve, and to perpetuate the sources and to direct in their most effective channels the streams which contribute to the public weal is the purpose for which Government was instituted.
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There is such seduction in a library of good books that I cannot resist the temptation to luxuriate in reading.
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I would much rather be found guilty of making a serious mistake in judgment, than to be accused of being even a little bit insincere.
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Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
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