John Adams Quotes

Founding Father, U.S. president from 1797 to 1801

Add quote

John Adams (30 October 1735 – 4 July 1826) was an American lawyer, author, statesman, and diplomat. He served as the second president of the United States (1797–1801), the first vice president (1789–1797), and as a Founding Father was a leader of American independence from the British Empire. Adams was a political theorist in the Age of Enlightenment who promoted republicanism and a strong central government. His innovative ideas were frequently published. He was also a dedicated diarist and correspondent, particularly with his wife and key advisor Abigail. He was the father of John Quincy Adams.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Pen Names: Novanglus

Alternative Names: J. Adams

From Wikidata (CC0)

If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle

Nineteen twentieths of [mankind is] opaque and unenlightened. Intimacy with most people will make you acquainted with vices and errors and follies enough to make you despise them.

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

Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!

Negro Slavery is an evil of Colossal magnitude and I am utterly averse to the admission of Slavery into the Missouri Territories.

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

When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.

Everything in life should be done with reflection.

There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.

All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from want of honor or virtue, but from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.

Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

The true source of our sufferings has been our timidity.

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.