Quotes By 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.

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

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

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.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.

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

While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

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.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Power always thinks... that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.

A government of laws, and not of men.

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

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.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

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

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

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.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.

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.

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

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.