Quotes by John Adams

"A government of laws and not of men."

"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."

"When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more."

"Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it."

"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."

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

"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."

"The Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations."

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

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

"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."

"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."