Top 176 Quotes & Sayings by John Quincy Adams
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American president John Quincy Adams.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I have no predilection for unpopularity as such, but I hold it much preferable to the popularity of a day, which perishes with the transient topic upon which it is grounded.
The great object of the institution of civil government is the improvement of those who are parties to the social compact.
It was the special purpose of Christ's appearance upon earth to bring immortality to light.
It is of no use to discover our own faults and infirmities unless the discovery prompts up to amendment.
Gratitude, warm, sincere, intense, when it takes possession of the bosom, fills the soul to overflowing and scarce leaves room for any other sentiment or thought.
This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.
Is not the brand of 'double-dealer' stamped on the forehead of every democratic slaveholder? Are not fraud and hypocrisy the religion of the man who calls himself a democrat, and hold his fellow-man in bondage?
From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy.
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
Where annual elections end where slavery begins.
In order to preserve the dominion of our own passions, it behooves us to be constantly and strictly on our guard against the influence and infection of the passions of others.
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
To read the Bible is of itself a laudable occupation and can scarcely fail of being a useful employment of time; but the habit of reflecting upon what you have read is equally essential as than of reading itself, to give it all the efficacy of which it is susceptible.
The Declaration of Independence pronounced the irrevocable decree of political separation, between the United States and their people on the one part, and the British king, government, and nation on the other.
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
Heaven has given to every human being the power of controlling his passions, and if he neglects or loses it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it.
Democracy, pure democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of human rights. It is founded on the natural equality of mankind. It is the cornerstone of the Christian religion. It is the first element of all lawful government upon earth.
The more you meditate on the laws of Moses, the more striking and brighter does their wisdom appear.
It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin?
It is so obvious to every reasonable being that he did not make himself, and the world in which he inhabits could as little make itself, that the moment we begin to exercise the power of reflection, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that there is a Creator.
Is it not that in the chain of human events, the birthday of a nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?
Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel.
I do conscientiously and sincerely believe that the Order of Freemasonry, if not the greatest, is one of the greatest moral and political evils under which the Union is now laboring ... a conspiracy of the few against the equal rights of the many ...Masonry ought forever to be abolished. It is wrong - essentially wrong - a seed of evil, which can never produce any good.
Individual liberty is individual power.
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
...he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind...The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God.
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions.
Whenever vanity and gaiety, a love of pomp and dress, furniture, equipage, buildings, great company, expensive diversions, and elegant entertainments get the better of the principles and judgments of men and women, there is no knowing where they will stop, nor into what evils, natural, moral, or political, they will lead us.
Human life, from the cradle to the grave, is a school. At every period of his existence man wants a teacher. His pilgrimage upon earth is but a term of childhood, in which he is to be educated for the manhood of a brighter world. As the child must be educated for manhood upon earth, so the man must be educated upon earth, for heaven; and finally that where the foundation is not laid in time, the superstructure can not rise for eternity.
From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future.
From the day of the Declaration...they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct.
Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.
America is a friend of freedom everywhere, but a custodian only of our own.
I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say to you, Search the Scriptures! The Bible is the book of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice through, and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted, unless by some overruling necessity.
Try and fail,but don't fail to try.
I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.
Whoever tells the best story wins.
No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible.
The natural state of mankind ... and I know that this is a controversial idea... is freedom... And the proof is the lengths to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it once lost. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try again, against all odds, against all prejudices.
Of all persecuted sects, the Baptists stand forth as most prominent, simply and only because they aim at a more complete and thorough reform than any others ever attempted. They teach that Christ's kingdom is not of this world; that the church is not a national, political, or provincial establishment; but a congregation of holy men, separated from the world by the receiving of the Holy Spirit.
The Sermon on the Mount commands me to lay up for myself treasures, not upon earth, but in Heaven. My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ.
Our Constitution rests on the good sense and the respect of the American people.
Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God.
All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.
Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union.
I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
Duty is ours, results are God's.
There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.
I would much rather be found guilty of making a serious mistake in judgment, than to be accused of being even a little bit insincere.
Find a mission that you can give yourself over to and then spend your days moving that mission forward. Man is made so that when anything fires his soul the impossibilities vanish. The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
The four most miserable years of my life were my four years in the presidency.
Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union. A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would now be certainly necessary. The Union might then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom.
Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth. Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail. Always vote for a principle, though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote is never lost. America, in the assembly of nations, has uniformly spoken among them the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights.
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