A Quote by John Adams

This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.

John Adams

Quote Topics

Best Possible Religion Were Worlds Would Would Be

Quote Author

John Adams
American - President
October 30, 1735 - July 4, 1826

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!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company-I mean hell.

John Adams

If by religion we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, "that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it.

Thomas Jefferson

I think this word 'disbelieve' would be the best of all possible worlds if everybody were an atheist or an agnostic or a humanist - his or her own particular brand - but as for compelling people to this, absolutely not.

Madalyn Murray O'Hair

In the best of all possible worlds, directors would obsess about the quality of their storytelling, and not the details of their technical methods.

Roger Ebert

I speculate that this is the best of all possible worlds, for philosophy is the best of humanity, and this world is the best philosophically.

Kedar Joshi

In the best of all possible worlds, everybody would be honorable, but that's not the way the world works. Reputations for reporters are made by discovering things underneath that rock.

Mike Wallace

Given the best of all possible worlds, I would make a few changes. I would place emphasis on increasing the amount of funding that goes into programs like Pell Grants, that purely and simply award funds to students who really cannot afford full tuition.

Charles Vest

We live in the best of all possible worlds

Gottfried Leibniz

I had said that Le Guin's worlds were real because her people were so real, and he said yes, but the people were so real because they were the people the worlds would have produced. If you put Ged to grow up on Anarres or Shevek in Earthsea, they would be the same people, the backgrounds made the people, which of course you see all the time in mainstream fiction, but it's rare in SF.

Jo Walton

If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?

Voltaire

The Bible is the best of books, and I wish it were in the hands of every one. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions. A free government can not exist without religion and morals, and there cannot be morals without religion. Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best school book in the world. I would that all our people were brought up under the influence of that holy book.

Zachary Taylor

The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil.

F. H. Bradley

The worlds of folklore and religion were so mingled in early twentieth venture German culture that even families who didn't go to church were often deeply Christian.