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 | "Liberty, according to my metaphysics ... is a self-determining power
in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power." | |
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Found in the topic Liberty.
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| "My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that
ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." | |
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Found in the topic President.
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| "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and
murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit
suicide." | |
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Found in the topic Democracy.
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| "You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would
therefore have given more power to the President and less to the
Senate." | |
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Found in the topic Government.
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| "Grief drives men to serious reflection, sharpens the understanding
and softens the heart." | |
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Found in the topic Grief.
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| "But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It
is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait
for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six?the swiftest Horses must
be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even
Pace." | |
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Found in the topic Ambition.
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| "I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will
cost us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these
States.?Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light
and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And
that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction, even although We
should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not." | |
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Found in the topic Independence.
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| "Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and
chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society." | |
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Found in the topic Politeness.
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| "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon
the Christian religion." | |
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Found in the topic Sentiment.
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| "The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If
I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still
believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential
instrument for civilizing the nations." | |
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Found in the topic Jew.
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| "The Science of Government it is my duty to study, more than all
other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation,
ought to take place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts.?I must
study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematics
and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematics and Philosophy,
Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and
Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting,
Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. This
letter has not been dated precisely, but appears to have been written
after Adams"s letter to his wife on May 12, and before one written to her
on May 15." | |
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Found in the topic Art.
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| "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." | |
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Found in the topic Everything.
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| "The die was now cast; I had passed the Rubicon. Swim or sink, live
or die, survive or perish with my country was my unalterable
determination." | |
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Found in the topic Decency.
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| "All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise,
not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want
of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of
coin, credit, and circulation." | |
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Found in the topic Defect.
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| "There is but one element of government, and that is THE PEOPLE. From
this element spring all governments. "For a nation to be free, it is only
necessary that she wills it." For a nation to be slave, it is only
necessary that she wills it." | |
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Found in the topic People.
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| "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in
the History of America.?I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by
succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be
commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God
Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews,
games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of
this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more." | |
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Found in the topic Anniversary.
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| "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." | |
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Found in the topic Education.
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| "Thomas Jefferson still survives ... (Actually, Jefferson had died
earlier that same day, Independence Day, July 4, 1826)" | |
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Found in the topic Last.
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| ""A government of laws and not of men." Adams published articles in
1774 in the Boston, Massachusetts, Gazette using the pseudonym
"Novanglus." In this paper he credited James Harrington with expressing
the idea this way. Harrington described government as "the empire of laws
and not of men" in his 1656 work, The Commonwealth of Oceana, p. 35
(1771). The phrase gained wider currency when Adams used it in the
Massachusetts Constitution, Bill of Rights, article 30 (1780).?Works, vol.
4, p. 230." | |
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Found in the topic Law.
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| "I Pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessing on THIS HOUSE, and on
All that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever
rule under this roof! President Franklin D. Roosevelt had this lettered in
gold in the marble over the fireplace in the State Dining Room of the
White House. The quotation above follows the capitalization used in the
inscription." | |
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Found in the topic Praise.
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