A Quote by Gordon S. Wood
[John] Adams never hid his jealousy and resentment of the other Founders, especially Benjamin Franklin.
Related Quotes
I think [John's Adams] descriptions of the personalities of [Benjamin] Franklin and [Tomas] Jefferson and others were pretty accurate. It is only when he felt he was wronged by them that he lets loose his anger and resentment.
[John's Adams] description of [Benjamin] Franklin in a letter to [his wife] Abigail in 1775 is laudatory. Only when he experiences all the adulation paid to Franklin in Paris does he begin to change his tune.
By 1782 [John Adams] had come to feel for [Benjamin] Franklin "no other sentiments than Contempt or Abhorrence."
[Benjamin] Franklin may be a great philosopher, [John Adams] told his diary in 1779, but "as a Legislator in America he has done very little."
From Samuel Adams to Patrick Henry to Benjamin Franklin to Alexander Hamilton, all the Founders intended religion to provide a moral anchor for our liberty in democracy.
There are plenty of Minutemen. People willing to be Minutemen. Where are the people that want to be George Washington? Where are the Benjamin Franklins? Where is Sam Adams? Where is John Adams?
[John] Adams was the best and most colorful stylist among the Founders. Although [Tomas] Jefferson is widely regarded as the smoothest writer, Adams is by far the most engaging and imaginative.
[John Adams's] vividly descriptive prose is supremely quotable. Adams wears his heart on his sleeve and reveals all of his ambitions, doubts, and insecurities, especially in his diary, which is one of the greatest and most readable in all of American literature.
Benjamin Franklin refused to have one of his children vaccinated against smallpox. The four-year-old boy died, and Franklin wrote later of how mistaken he was to expose him to the needless risk.
My ideal man is Benjamin Franklin-the figure in American history most worthy of emulation ... Franklin is my ideal of a whole man. ... Where are the life-size-or even pint-size-Benjamin Franklins of today?
Those who knew Benjamin Franklin will recollect that his mind was forever young, his temper ever serene; science, that never grows gray, was always his mistress. He was never without an object, for when we cease to have an object, we become like an invalid in a hospital waiting for death.
A mutual friend, Benjamin Rush, brought [Tomas Jefferson and John Adams] together in 1812, and they went on to exchange letters for the rest of their lives. But in their correspondence they tended to avoid the most controversial issues, such as slavery.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political enemies, but they became fast friends. And when they passed away on the same day, the last words of one of them was, The country is safe. Jefferson still lives. And the last words of the other was, John Adams will see that things go forward.
I tell the story of eight forgotten founders, people like Canassatego, an Iroquois Indian Chief, who taught Benjamin Franklin about federalism, about the idea that you can form a confederacy in which the central power has only limited powers and local control is retained.
[John] Adams never had an optimistic view of human nature, and his experience in the Congress and abroad only deepened his suspicion that his fellow Americans might not have the character to sustain a republican government.
For years, I've had a hankering for the portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis. Franklin is credited with so many inventions: the postal system, lightning rods, the constitution. He was a rock star before there was such a thing.
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