Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
- John Adams Quote

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.
- John Adams Quote

Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion... in private self-defense.
- John Adams Quote

As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
- John Adams Quote

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.
- John Adams Quote

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.
- John Adams Quote

Fear is the foundation of most governments.
- John Adams Quote

Genius is sorrow's child.
- John Adams Quote

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.
- John Adams Quote

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.
- John Adams Quote

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.
- John Adams Quote

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

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

In politics the middle way is none at all.
- John Adams Quote

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

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.
- John Adams Quote

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

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

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
- John Adams Quote

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.
- John Adams Quote

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
- John Adams Quote

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

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.
- John Adams Quote

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.
- John Adams Quote

The happiness of society is the end of government.
- John Adams Quote

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.
- John Adams Quote

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
- John Adams Quote

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
- John Adams Quote

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.
- John Adams Quote