John Adams

Admire and adore the Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to lessen ill, and increase good, but never assume to comprehend.

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

Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.

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

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

The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.

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

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: nor is the law less stable than the fact.

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

No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

The whole drama of the world is such tragedy that I am weary of the spectacle.

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.

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

They shall not be expected to acknowledge us until we have acknowledged ourselves.

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.

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

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.

[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.

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.

Power must never be trusted without a check.