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.
John AdamsRead
The happiness of society is the end of government.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The main goal of government should be to ensure the happiness of its citizens.
John Adams asserts that the ultimate purpose of government is to foster the well-being and happiness of society. This reflects the idea that governments should prioritize the needs and happiness of the people they serve, positioning societal welfare as a fundamental objective of governance.
Themes
HappinessGovernmentSocietyWell-BeingWelfare
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about civic responsibility, one might say, 'As John Adams said, the happiness of society is the end of government, highlighting our duty to contribute to the greater good.'
More from John Adams
All quotes βProperty monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.
John AdamsRead
Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
John AdamsRead
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
John AdamsRead
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
John AdamsRead
The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.
John AdamsRead
Similar quotes
Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
Rosa LuxemburgRead
The socialism of centralised state control of industry and production, is dead. It misunderstood the nature and development of a modern market economy. It failed to recognise that the state and public sector can become a vested interest capable of oppression as much as the vested interests of wealth and capital. it was based on a false view of class that became too rigid to explain or illuminate the nature of class division today.
Tony BlairRead
It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.
Lyndon B. JohnsonRead
The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.
Alexander HamiltonRead
The proximate cause of Iraq's unraveling was the increasing authoritarian, sectarian, and corrupt conduct of the Iraqi government and its leader after the departure of the last U.S. combat forces in 2011.
David PetraeusRead
When you have armed militants, aided and abetted by a major country like Russia, able to use surface-to-air missiles to bring down a commercial airline, that is a form of terrorism.
Hillary ClintonRead