Top 100 John Quincy Adams Quotes
#1. A gentleman of one of the first fortunes upon the continent ... sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the cause of his country.
John Quincy Adams
#2. A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.
John Quincy Adams
#3. His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.
John Quincy Adams
#4. 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
#5. I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their G-d!
John Quincy Adams
#6. I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once ever year ... My custom is, to read four to five chapters every morning immediately after rising from my bed. I employs about an hour of my time ...
John Quincy Adams
#7. The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in [Great Britain] than in any other place that I ever saw.
John Quincy Adams
#8. 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
#9. Though it cost the blood of millions of white men, let it come. Let justice be done.
John Quincy Adams
#10. The gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.
John Quincy Adams
#13. My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising. It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day. It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.
John Quincy Adams
#14. The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
John Quincy Adams
#15. Life is a problem; mortal man was made to solve the solemn problem right or wrong.
John Quincy Adams
#16. However tiresome to others, the most indefatigable orator is never tedious to himself. The sound of his own voice never loses its harmony to his own ear; and among the delusions, which self-love is ever assiduous in attempting to pass upon virtue, he fancies himself to be sounding the sweetest tones
John Quincy Adams
#17. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws.
John Quincy Adams
#18. A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
John Quincy Adams
#19. It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
John Quincy Adams
#20. 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
#22. I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
John Quincy Adams
#23. Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, till not a slave shall on this earth be found.
John Quincy Adams
#24. The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
John Quincy Adams
#25. So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the debts and defraying the expenses of the community, its operation should be adapted as much as possible to suit the burden with equal hand upon all in proportion with their ability of bearing it without oppression.
John Quincy Adams
#26. 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
#27. The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.
John Quincy Adams
#28. 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.
John Quincy Adams
#29. 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.
John Quincy Adams
#30. From the day of the Declaration ... they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct.
John Quincy Adams
#31. The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth.
John Quincy Adams
#32. It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that [people] are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future.
John Quincy Adams
#33. The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.
John Quincy Adams
#34. 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
#35. The art of making love, muffled up in furs, in the open air, with the thermometer at Zero, is a Yankee invention.
John Quincy Adams
#36. The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not.
John Quincy Adams
#37. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America's heart, her benedictions and her prayers.
John Quincy Adams
#38. If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled.
John Quincy Adams
#39. To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs.
John Quincy Adams
#40. Thus situated, the perilous experiment must be made. Let me make it with full deliberations, and be prepared for the consequences.
John Quincy Adams
#41. Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.
John Quincy Adams
#42. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
John Quincy Adams
#43. Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams
#44. If the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence, as self-evident truths, are real truths, the existence of slavery, in any form, is a wrong.
John Quincy Adams
#45. 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
#46. There is such seduction in a library of good books that I cannot resist the temptation to luxuriate in reading.
John Quincy Adams
#47. The public history of all countries, and all ages, is but a sort of mask, richly colored. The interior working of the machinery must be foul.
John Quincy Adams
#48. No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible.
John Quincy Adams
#49. From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future.
John Quincy Adams
#51. But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow ... Like a Coach and six - the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
John Quincy Adams
#52. From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy.
John Quincy Adams
#53. It has been my custom for many years to read the Bible in its entirety once a year
John Quincy Adams
#54. 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
#55. My stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse.
John Quincy Adams
#56. In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.
John Quincy Adams
#57. He [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind ... The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God.
John Quincy Adams
#58. This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.
John Quincy Adams
#59. To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is ... the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence.
John Quincy Adams
#60. The mere title of lawyer is sufficient to deprive a man of the public confidence ... The most innocent and irreproachable life cannot guard a lawyer against the hatred of his fellow citizens.
John Quincy Adams
#61. I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.
John Quincy Adams
#63. Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers and of love for our posterity.
John Quincy Adams
#64. To a man of liberal education, the study of history is not only useful, and important, but altogether indispensable, and with regard to the history contained in the Bible ... it is not so much praiseworthy to be acquainted with as it is shameful to be ignorant of it.
John Quincy Adams
#65. This mode of electioneering suited neither my taste nor my principles. I thought it equally unsuitable to my personal character and to the station in which I am placed.
John Quincy Adams
#66. Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.
John Quincy Adams
#67. The magistrate is the servant not of his own desires, not even of the people, but of his God
John Quincy Adams
#68. The great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community ... that in the operation of human institutions upon social action, self-love and social may be made the same.
John Quincy Adams
#69. Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union.
John Quincy Adams
#70. America is a friend of freedom everywhere, but a custodian only of our own.
John Quincy Adams
#71. It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God.
John Quincy Adams
#72. 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.
John Quincy Adams
#74. I want the seals of power and place, the ensigns of command, charged by the people's unbought grace, to rule my native land. Nor crown, nor scepter would I ask but from my country's will, by day, by night, to ply the task her cup of bliss to fill.
John Quincy Adams
#75. It is my wish to fill every moment of my time with some action of the mind which may contribute to the pleasure or the improvement of my fellow creatures.
John Quincy Adams
#76. I want a warm and faithful friend, To cheer the adverse hour; Who ne'er to flatter will descend, Nor bend the knee to power,- A friend to chide me when I'm wrong, My inmost soul to see; And that my friendship prove as strong For him as his for me.
John Quincy Adams
#77. The great object of the institution of civil government is the improvement of those who are parties to the social compact.
John Quincy Adams
#78. 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.
John Quincy Adams
#79. [I believe in the] rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.
John Quincy Adams
#80. Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day (the 4th of July)? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior?.
John Quincy Adams
#81. Our Constitution rests on the good sense and the respect of the American people.
John Quincy Adams
#82. 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
#83. There is in the clergy of all Christian denominations a time-serving, cringing, subservient morality, as wide from the spirit of the gospel as it is from the intrepid assertion and vindication of truth.
John Quincy Adams
#84. 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
#85. What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the fields and vallies, which a beneficent God has formed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness?
John Quincy Adams
#87. Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Saviour?
John Quincy Adams
#89. Posterity
you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.
John Quincy Adams
#91. I told him it was law logic-an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else.
John Quincy Adams
#92. The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the Legislator and Savior of the world.
John Quincy Adams
#93. The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult.
John Quincy Adams
#94. The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.
John Quincy Adams
#95. No one knows, and few conceive, the agony of mind that I have suffered from the time that I was made by circumstances, and not by my volition, a candidate for the Presidency till I was dismissed from that station by the failure of my election.
John Quincy Adams
#96. 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.
John Quincy Adams
#97. Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.
John Quincy Adams
#98. 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
#99. America ... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
John Quincy Adams
#100. A man's diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.
John Quincy Adams
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