A Quote by John Adams

Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be. — © John Adams
Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be.
One of the things about the modern world is that the public and the private - which is not the same as the public and the personal - but the public and the private... it's very, very much harder than it used to be to have things that are private and things that are public.
But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.
The most personal thing I've put in [Touch of Evil] is my hatred of the abuse of police power. It's better to see a murderer go free than for a policeman to abuse his power.
We go to great pains to alter life for the happiness of our descendants and our descendants will say as usual: things used to be so much better, life today is worse than it used to be.
I was brought up as a Catholic, and I'm no longer a Catholic. I don't talk about my beliefs too much in public probably because I feel very strongly that it's something personal - more than personal, it's private.
Just in higher education alone, more people go to college now, by enormous amounts, than went to college in the '50's and '60's. So that represents a whole new literate public that's a consumer of literature, of news, of print, of, you know, opinion. And that's a bigger audience and much more diverse audience than it used to be.
The more people share woodland, absorb it and regard it as part of their personal heritage and culture, the richer our society will be. The more people can work in woods and use them practically rather than go through the motions as a kind of ersatz exercise, the more they will care for the places themselves rather than the political idea of them.
Exciting underground stuff is easier to find with YouTube than it used to be. You don't have to go to the dive bar in the bad part of town to see a band you would never usually see. My personal experience with it, when I was looking for a new lead guitarist, I was able to stalk guitarists on Youtube. And instead of having a horribly embarrassing auditioning process, I could check out peoples' playing. In some ways, you go into a record shop and the selection is narrower than it used to be with pop ruling the roost, but if you look, there's so much more to be found.
I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.
The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honour or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.
Generally our confidences move downward rather than upward; in our secret affairs, we employ our inferiors much more than our bettors.
Occasionally I was so much better that I could go out; but the streets used to put me in such a rage that I would lock myself up for days rather than go out, even if I were well enough to do so! I could not bear to see all those preoccupied, anxious-looking creatures continuously surging along the streets past me! Why are they always anxious? What is the meaning of their eternal care and worry? It is their wickedness, their perpetual detestable malice-that's what it is-they are all full of malice, malice!
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
Character issues such as drug abuse are not exclusive to Detroit Public Schools. My reference to substance abuse, not intended to focus on any particular school district, was simply used to illustrate this position.
I was a sick child, I was scared, and honestly speaking, I never thought about why I didn't tell anyone about my abuse. Abuse victims don't have all the answers, and I never thought it was abuse. My generation was totally different. Now a small child knows many things, much more than what we knew. When I understood it was not right, it was much later.
No man is nobler born than another, unless he is born with better abilities and a more amiable disposition. They who make such a parade with their family pictures and pedigrees, are, properly speaking, rather to be called noted or notorious than noble persons. I thought it right to say this much, in order to repel the insolence of men who depend entirely upon chance and accidental circumstances for distinction, and not at all on public services and personal merit.
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