JOHN ADAMS QUOTES II
American President (1735-1826)
We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Thomas Jefferson, Jan. 23, 1825
In the morning we discovered three sail of vessels ahead. We went near enough to discover them to be frigates, and then put away. We soon lost sight of two of them: but the third chased us the whole day. Sometimes we gained upon her, and sometimes she upon us.
JOHN ADAMS
diary, Feb. 19, 1778
The turpitude, the inhumanity, the cruelty, and the infamy of the African commerce in slaves have been so impressively represented to the public by the highest powers of eloquence that nothing that I can say would increase the just odium in which it is and ought to be held. Every measure of prudence, therefore, ought to be assumed for the eventual total extirpation of slavery from the United States.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to T. Robert J. Evans, June 8, 1819
I read my eyes out and can't read half enough.... The more one reads the more one sees we have to read.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Abigail Adams, Dec. 28, 1794
Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Thomas Jefferson, Apr. 19, 1817
The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.
JOHN ADAMS
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government
Virtue is not always amiable.
JOHN ADAMS
diary, Feb. 9, 1779
The world grows more enlightened. Knowledge is more equally diffused.
JOHN ADAMS
Discourses on Davila, No. 13
I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.
JOHN ADAMS
Autobiography
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
JOHN ADAMS
attributed, Looking Toward Sunset: From Sources Old and New, Original and Selected
In politics the middle way is none at all.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Horatio Gates, Mar. 23, 1776
You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to John Quincy Adams, May 14, 1781
The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If "Thou shall not covet," and "Thou shall not steal," are not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.
JOHN ADAMS
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government
My fixed principle never to be the tool of any man, nor the partisan of any nation, would forever exclude me from the smiles and favors or courts.
JOHN ADAMS
diary, 1782
Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to John Quincy Adams, Nov. 13, 1816
Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality; an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. If the substance in which this quality, attribute, adjective, call it what you will, exists, has a moral sense, a conscience, a moral faculty; if it can distinguish between moral good and moral evil, and has power to choose the former and refuse the latter, it can, if it will, choose the evil and reject the good, as we see in experience it very often does.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to John Taylor, 1814
The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.
JOHN ADAMS
Argument in Defense of the British Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, Dec. 4, 1770
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
JOHN ADAMS
Novanglus Essays, No. 3
Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de tres bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, beyond the comprehension of the weak.
JOHN ADAMS
letter to Thomas Jefferson, Feb. 2, 1816