His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.
John Quincy AdamsRead
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The Sinai code embodies laws essential for societal existence, blending civil, moral, and religious principles.
John Quincy Adams reflects on the comprehensive nature of the laws given from Sinai, asserting that they are not merely religious but also civil and moral frameworks essential for societal coexistence. He emphasizes that many of these laws are universally applicable and have been adopted by various nations throughout history, highlighting their fundamental role in establishing order and justice in human society.
Themes
LawSocietyMoralityCodeUniversal
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of justice in community, one might reference this quote to emphasize the foundational nature of legal codes.
More from John Quincy Adams
All quotes →Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
John Quincy AdamsRead
It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
John Quincy AdamsRead
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
John Quincy AdamsRead
I have no predilection for unpopularity as such, but I hold it much preferable to the popularity of a day, which perishes with the transient topic upon which it is grounded.
John Quincy AdamsRead
According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.
John Quincy AdamsRead
Similar quotes
Of course God is endlessly multi-dimensional so every religion that exists on earth represents some face, some side of God.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
This world could not have been the work of an all-loving being, but that of a devil, who had brought creatures into existence in order to delight in the sight of their sufferings.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.
Georg C. LichtenbergRead
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
James Russell LowellRead
All of childhood's unanswered questions must finally be passed back to the town and answered there. Heroes and bogey men, values and dislikes, are first encountered and labeled in that early environment. In later years they change faces, places and maybe races, tactics, intensities and goals, but beneath those penetrable masks they wear forever the stocking-capped faces of childhood.
Maya AngelouRead
The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality.
Robert Green IngersollRead