Quotes from John Adams

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

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.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.

Everything in life should be done with reflection.

I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.

During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.

As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?

In esse I am nothing; in posse I am everything.

Every man in it is a great man, an orator, a critic, a statesman; and therefore every man upon every question must show his oratory, his criticism, and his political abilities.

I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities, so that their children can study painting, poetry and other fine things.

It is not only the juror's right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court.

Genius is sorrow's child.