John Adams

The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.

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.

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.

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

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant in case of necessity can no more be doubted than to hang a robber, or kill a flea.

I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

The fundamental law of the militia is, that it be created, directed and commanded by the laws, and ever for the support of the laws.

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.

Genius is sorrow's child.

I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate.

I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave others to wear the laurels which I have sown, others to eat the bread which I have earned. A common case.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

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

In politics the middle way is none at all.

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.