John Adams quotes

" I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. " # Revolutions and Revolutionaries # Politicians and Politics # Liberty

" Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people. " # Liberty # Knowledge # Freedom

" Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order. " # Mind # Work # Exercise

" Fear is the foundation of most government. " # Government # Freedom # Power

" Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year. " # President

" Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. " # Education

" Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. " # Freedom # Government # Morality

" The happiness of society is the end of government. " # Society # Happiness # Government

" Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak. " # Power # Love # Arts and Artists

" We may appeal to every page of history we have hitherto turned over, for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous and cruel as any king or senate possessed of uncontrollable power ... All projects of government, formed upon a supposition of continual vigilance, sagacity, and virtue, firmness of the people, when possessed of the exercise of supreme power, are cheats and delusions ... The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. Equally arbitrary, cruel, bloody, and in every respect diabolical. " # Population