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| JOHN ADAMS |
| �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.�
�Genius is sorrow�s child.� �Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens understanding and softens the heart.� �I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all.� �I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.� �In every society where property exists there will ever be a struggle between rich and poor. Mixed in one assembly, equal laws can never be expected; they will either be made by the members to plunder the few who are rich, or by the influential to fleece the many who are poor.� �Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.� �My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.� �No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.� �Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.� �The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefensible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge--I mean the character and conduct of their rulers.� �The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations.� �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.� �You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.� |
| (1735-1826) US 2nd President whose son also served as US President |