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Quotes From The Founders Complete

Posted by Online Professor on September 1, 2020 at 10:10 in Echoes from The Founders

John Adams Quotes

One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.

John Adams

Men, Law, Two

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

John Adams

Bible, God, Religious

John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.229

266 Copy quote
There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution.

John Adams

Party, Humble, Government

John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.511

235 Copy quote
Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.

John Adams

Principles, Politics, Stand Alone

"Who is Bernie Sanders?" by Tom Pappalardo, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 28, 2015.

190 Copy quote
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

John Adams

Men, Class, Safety

John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.97, Hackett Publishing

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

John Adams

Country, Two, Debt

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

John Adams

Peace, War, Thinking

John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1959). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. 1812-1826”

146 Copy quote
Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

John Adams

Liberty, Libertarian, Pro Gun

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

John Adams

Suicide, Freedom, Suicidal

Letter from John Adams to John Taylor, 15 Apr. 1814

217 Copy quote
When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.

John Adams

Hands, Political, Citizens

42 Copy quote
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

John Adams

Government, Presidential, Forever

John Adams (2012). “The Letters of John and Abigail Adams”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

181 Copy quote
...Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty once lost is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.

John Adams

Government, Cities, People

John Adams (2003). “The Letters of John and Abigail Adams”, p.50, Penguin

65 Copy quote
Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.

John Adams

Opportunity, Problem, Disguise

22 Copy quote
The date will be the most memorable epoch 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 shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

John Adams

Sports, 4th Of July, Believe

Letter to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776

51 Copy quote
Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.

John Adams

Names, Hypocrisy, Suffering

"A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law" by John Adams, teachingamericanhistory.org. 1765.

154 Copy quote
As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.... The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.

John Adams

Christian, Country, Religious

160 Copy quote
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.

John Adams

Passion, Patriotic, Law

John Adams (1971). “The Works [of] John Adams, Second President of the United States: Life of John Adams”

160 Copy quote
Power must never be trusted without a check.

John Adams

Power, Checks, Trusted

John Adams, Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson (1988). “The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams”

92 Copy quote
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.

John Adams

Suicide, Selfish, Passion

Letter to John Taylor, 15 Apr. 1814

16 Copy quote
The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.

John Adams

Bible, Jesus, Destiny

9 Copy quote
That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the world.

John Adams

People, Democracy, Desire

John Adams (2015). “The Works of John Adams Vol. 6: Defence of the Constitution IV, Discourses on Davila”, p.43, Jazzybee Verlag

16 Copy quote
[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.

John Adams

Eye, Men, Intellectual

49 Copy quote
If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle

John Adams

Believe, Men, Tails

John Adams, Benjamin Rush (1892). “Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle... Series A-[B]”

62 Copy quote
Our whole system of banks is a violation of every honest principle of banks. There is no honest bank but a bank of deposit. A bank that issues paper at interest is a pickpocket or a robber. But the delusion will have its course. ... An aristocracy is growing out of them that will be as fatal as the feudal barons if unchecked in time.

John Adams

Issues, Principles, Aristocracy

John Adams, Benjamin Rush (1892). “Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle... Series A-[B]”

92 Copy quote
The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties; not to oppress an individual or a few, but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited.

John Adams

Jealous, Government, People

40 Copy quote

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