John Adams

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and
philosophy.
– John Adams

Old minds are like horses. You must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
– John Adams

Did you ever hear of a great and good man who had not a good mother?
– John Adams

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a
democracy that did not commit suicide.
– John Adams

Always stand on principle – even if you stand alone.
– John Adams

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by
debt.
– 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.
– John Adams

The form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word,
happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.
– John Adams

The happiness of society is the end of government.
– John Adams

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

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

You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.
– John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson

Let every sluice of knowledge be opened and set a-flowing.
– John Adams

Thanks to God that he gave me stubbornness when I know I am right.
– John Adams

What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution
was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the
people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.
– John Adams

Modesty is a virtue that can never thrive in public.
– John Adams

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism
cannot confine it.
– John Adams

All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from want of honor or virtue,
but from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
– John Adams

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang
a robber, or kill a flea.
– John Adams

When annual elections end, there slavery begins.
– John Adams

The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable,
and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I
think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated.
– John Adams

Power must never be trusted without a check.
– John Adams

Metaphysicians and politicians may dispute forever, but they will never find any other moral
principle or foundation of rule or obedience, than the consent of governors and governed.
– John Adams

Virtue is the mistress of all things. Virtue is the master of all things. Therefore a nation that
should never do wrong must necessarily govern the world. The might of virtue, the power of
virtue, is not a very common topic, not so common as it should be.
– John Adams

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, that two become a
lawfirm, and that three or more become a congress.
– John Adams

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people’s hands, that is, to give them the power
at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.
– John Adams

The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to
the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.
– John Adams

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
– John Adams

Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.
– John Adams

I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.
– John Adams

The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire,
the less I seem to know. Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.
– John Adams

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
– John Adams

Killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty
enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of
the one, the few, and the many.
– John Adams

I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter
inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.
– John Adams

I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has
been opened and enlarged by reading.
– John Adams

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.
– John Adams

A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man’s attention and to inflame his ambition.
– John Adams

A constitution of government once changed from freedom, can never be restored. Liberty,
once lost, is lost forever.
– John Adams

The balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land.
– John Adams

The people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal,
barbarous, and cruel, as any king or senate possessed of uncontrollable power. The majority
has eternally, and without one exception, usurped over the rights of the minority.
– John Adams

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.
– John Adams

There are two types of education. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other
how to live.
– John Adams

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?
– John Adams

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.
– John Adams

It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones.
– John Adams

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

Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not
to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it.
– John Adams

When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.
– John Adams

Liberty 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

To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.
– John Adams

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your
freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I
ever took half the pains to preserve it.
– John Adams

A man ought to avow his opinions and defend them with boldness.
– John Adams

It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt
and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence
itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say,
“Whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,”
and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end
of security whatsoever.
– John Adams

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction,
and division of society.
– John Adams

The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused.
– John Adams

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 Adams

You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful
citizen.
– John Adams

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the
government of any other.
– John Adams

To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.
– John Adams

Rejoice always in all events, be thankful always for all things is a hard precept for human
nature, though in my philosophy and religion a perfect duty.
– John Adams

Fear is the foundation of most governments.
– John Adams

If national pride is ever justifiable or excusable it is when it springs, not from power or riches,
grandeur or glory, but from conviction of national innocence, information and benevolence.
– John Adams

If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But
extravagant popularity is not the road to public advantage.
– John Adams