Top 100 Quotes About John Adams
#1. Defeat appears to me preferable to total Inaction.
John Adams
#2. The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.
John Adams
#3. The city has millions of stories that I don't know. Never did and never will.
John Joseph Adams
#4. You are so ridiculous," said the lion. "Thinking that your thinking is worth thinking about.
John Joseph Adams
#5. I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.
John Adams
#6. The world shall retire from me before I shall retire from the world. John Quincy Adams
Paul C. Nagel
#8. I discovered books and read forever
John Adams
#9. I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.
John Adams
#10. 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
#11. Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.
John Adams
#12. A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.
John Quincy Adams
#13. The historian must have no country. - JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
James W. Loewen
#14. A militia law, requiring all men, or with very few exceptions besides cases of conscience, to be provided with arms and ammunition ... is always a wise institution, and, in the present circumstances of our country, indispensable.
John Adams
#15. Conclude not from all this that I have renounced the Christian religion ... Far from it. I see in every page something to recommend Christianity in its purity, and something to discredit its corruptions ... The ten commandments and the sermon on the mount contain my religion.
John Adams
#16. Karl stood up and pointed at the large portraits on the wall. He swept the room from George Washington to Ben Franklin to John Adams to Thomas Jefferson. "Soldier, Printer, Lawyer, Scholar. You become a politician because the people make you one, not because you desire to be one.
Jeff Ferry
#17. Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write .
John Adams
#18. The surface causes of Adams's anxieties are not difficult to discern. Every activist knew the penalty for treason. Every congressman knew that prison, perhaps death, would be his reward if the American rebellion failed.
John Ferling
#19. Whenever serious art loses track of its roots in the vernacular, then it begins to atrophy.
John Adams
#20. His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.
John Quincy Adams
#21. National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman.
John Adams
#22. 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
#23. The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families.
John Adams
#24. John Quincy Adams resolved to the discipline of rejecting argument for argument's sake would he sees that a fellow cabinet member is trying to draw him in to debating proposals the president will already reject.
Paul C. Nagel
#25. Politics are a labyrinth without a clue.
John Adams
#26. Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding, and softens the heart
John Adams
#27. It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.
John Adams
#28. 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
#29. A government of laws, and not of men
John Adams
#31. I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: 'Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800'.
John Adams
#32. 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
#33. Our religion was the religion of a Book. Man must be educated on Earth for Heaven. John Quincy Adams
Paul C. Nagel
#34. 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
#35. CJ is my nickname. It stands for Cameron, and my middle name is John.
CJ Adams
#36. [L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.
John Adams
#37. John Quincy Adams' depression was treated by his aunt with some reliable remedies, first sleep and then compassion. She said, " He was half cared for by having someone to care for him.
Paul C. Nagel
#38. Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
John Adams
#39. 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
#40. Dogbert: So, Since Columbus is dead, you have no evidence that the earth is round. Dilbert: Look. You can Ask Senator John Glenn. He orbited the earth when he was an astronaut. Dogbert: So, your theory depends on the honesty of politicians. Dilbert: Yes ... no, wait ...
Scott Adams
#41. You're going to have things to repent, boy,' Mr. John had told Nick. 'That's one of the best things there is. You can always decide whether to repent them or not. But the thing is to have them.
Ernest Hemingway,
#42. I launched 'Lightspeed' magazine in 2010, and from day one, we've had a strict mission to try to have gender parity in the magazine because that was the first hurdle that science fiction and fantasy have been dealing with for a long time.
John Joseph Adams
#43. Tom Hooper had done 'John Adams,' and David Lynch did 'Twin Peaks.' I figured I could do eight hours of television, and I wanted to.
Cary Fukunaga
#44. Though it cost the blood of millions of white men, let it come. Let justice be done.
John Quincy Adams
#45. Eloquence in public assemblies is not the surest road to fame and preferment, at least unless it be used with great caution, very rarely, and with great reserve.
John Adams
#46. Here in France, you must practice the art of accomplishing much while appearing to accomplish little. (in the John Adams miniseries on HBO)
Benjamin Franklin
#47. Ideology is the science of idiots.
John Adams
#48. Be not intimidated ... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.
John Adams
#49. I was born for a controversial world, and I cannot escape my destiny. John Quincy Adams
Paul C. Nagel
#50. We understand now, we've been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.
John Quincy Adams
#51. We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!
John Adams
#52. The gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.
John Quincy Adams
#53. I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.
Gavin Bryars
#54. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, and that a free country!
John Adams
#55. 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.
John Quincy Adams
#57. We must not then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul of man for its preservation.
John Adams
#58. All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
John Adams
#60. You may have the bishop pair but I have the ultimate advantage; I am the better player!
John Adams
#61. Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society.
John Adams
#62. I want to see my wife and children every day, I want to see my grass and blossoms and corn ... But above all, except the wife and children, I want to see my books.
John Adams
#63. 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
#64. Why have I not genius to start some new thought? Some thing that will surprise the world?
John Adams
#65. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.
John Adams
#66. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
#67. Politics are the divine science, after all.
John Adams
#68. I say, that Power must never be trusted without a check.
John Adams
#69. Whether they be old or young, rich or poor, high or low, wise or foolish, ignorant or learned, every individual is seen to be strongly actuated by a desire to be seen, heard, talked of, approved and respected ... a passion for distinction.
John Adams
#70. I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame
John Adams
#71. 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
#72. The study and practice of law ... does not dissolve the obligations of morality or of religion.
John Adams
#74. When John Quincy Adams in the Netherlands was placed with elementary students and belittled because he did not speak Dutch, either the author or John Adams accuses school authorities of "littleness of soul".
Paul C. Nagel
#75. The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to prevent their growth in our own.
John Adams
#76. The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.
John Adams
#77. The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
John Adams
#78. I'm a geek. I love SF and fantasy. I listen to metal. I follow the Oakland Raiders and the Orlando Magic.
John Joseph Adams
#79. Without the pen of Paine, the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain.
John Adams
#80. During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.
John Adams
#81. 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
#82. The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.
John Adams
#83. Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.
John Adams
#84. I am quite content to come home and go to Farming, be a select Man, and owe no Man any Thing but good Will. There I can get a little health and teach my Boys to be Lawyers.
John Adams
#85. I cannot think it either Vanity or Virtue to acknowledge, that the Acquisition and communication of Knowledge, are the sole Entertainment of my Life
John Adams
#86. Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
John Adams
#87. Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man's nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God ... Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes and parliaments.
John Adams
#88. [I]t is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.
John Adams
#89. If my superiors shall permit me to come home, I hope it will be soon; if they mean I should stay abroad, I am not able to say what I shall do, until I know in what capacity. One thing is certain, that I will not live long without my family.
John Adams
#90. By the fall of 1775 no one in Congress labored more ardently than Adams to hasten the day when America would be separate from Great Britain.
John Ferling
#91. When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.
John Adams
#92. This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. John Adams, U.S. President
George Washington
#93. Those are stories, little one," said the cobbler. "Stories are made up except when they're not.
John Joseph Adams
#94. Rather than make peace with John Adams, he was ready, if necessary, to blow up the Federalist party and let Jefferson become president. The
Ron Chernow
#95. I know the name of Turkey's leading avant-guard publication. I know that John Quincy Adams married for money. I know that Bud Abbott was a double-crosser, that absentee ballots are very popular in Ireland, and that dwarves have prominent buttocks.
A. J. Jacobs
#96. Your Letters concerning Miss N. have given me as much Concern as they ought-not knowing the Character nor what to advise, but feeling all a Fathers Tenderness, longing to be at home that I might enquire and consider and take the Care I ought.
John Adams
#97. 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.
John Adams
#98. By my physical constitution I am but an ordinary man ... Yet some great events, some cutting expressions, some mean hypocracies, have at times thrown this assemblage of sloth, sleep, and littleness into rage like a lion.
John Adams
#99. How hard have those intolerant of John Adams's perspective worked to strip from young people any hope of knowing the concepts and truths that help deal with life?
Foster Friess
#100. In 1979, I received a phone call from Ansel Adams asking me if I would be willing to consider coming to work for him. I was teaching photography in Southern California at that point.
John Sexton
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
