John Adams Quotes

The happiness of society is the end of government.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

Politics are the divine science, after all.

The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount contain my religion.

Birth and wealth together have prevailed over virtue and talent in all ages.

The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion.

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?

I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

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

I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.

I cannot conceive such a Being could make such a Species as the human, merely to live and die on this earth.

The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

I am persuaded there is among the mass of our people a fund of wisdom, integrity, and humanity which will preserve their happiness in a tolerable measure.

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 whole world.

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind, whom should we serve?

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

A democracy is as really a republic as on oak a tree, or a temple a building.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence.

It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there can be property in man.

The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge - I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.

Happiness, whether in despotism or democracy, whether in slavery or liberty, can never be found without virtue.

There is no such thing as human wisdom; all is the providence of God.