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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.

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
Choose
Thoroughly
Shafts
Cause
Impressive
Shrouded
Strength
Substitute
Acquainted
Causes
Substitutes
Multitude
Real
Aim
Obscurity
Argument
Advocate
Weakness
Accuracy
Mark
Multitudes

More quotes by John Quincy Adams

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The Constitution had provided that all the public functionaries of the Union...should be under oath or affirmation for its support. The homage of religious faith was thus superadded to all the obligations of temporal law to give it strength.
John Quincy Adams
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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.
John Quincy Adams
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A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.
John Quincy Adams
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Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.
John Quincy Adams
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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.
John Quincy Adams
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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.
John Quincy Adams
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The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.
John Quincy Adams
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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.
John Quincy Adams
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I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.
John Quincy Adams
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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.
John Quincy Adams
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If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams
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The imagination of a eunuch dwells more and longer upon the material of love than that of man or woman ... supplying, so far as he can, by speculation, the place of pleasures he can no longer enjoy.
John Quincy Adams
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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.
John Quincy Adams
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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!
John Quincy Adams
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Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls.
John Quincy Adams
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Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God.
John Quincy Adams
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Where annual elections end where slavery begins.
John Quincy Adams
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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.
John Quincy Adams
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Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government.
John Quincy Adams
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To believe that everyone is honest is folly, but to believe that no one is honest is worse.
John Quincy Adams