A Quote by John Adams

If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?

John Adams

Quote Topics

Acknowledge Any Better Calculated Every Form Foundation General Government Happiness Man Other Principle Promote Sober Than Then Virtue Whose Will

Quote Author

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

Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

John Adams

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

James Madison

We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.

Abraham Lincoln

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

James Madison

You will permit me to say, that a greater drama is now acting on this theatre than has heretofore been brought on the American tage, or any other in the world. We exhibit at present the novel and astonishing spectacle of a whole people deliberating calmly on what form of government will be most conducive to their happiness; and deciding with an unexpected degree of unanimity in favour of a system which they conceive calculated to answer the purpose.

George Washington

Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Cory Doctorow

If then, as we say, good craftsmen look to the mean as they work, and if virtue, like nature, is more accurate and better than any form of art, it will follow that virtue has the quality of hitting the mean. I refer to moral virtue [not intellectual], for this is concerned with emotions and actions, in which one can have excess or deficiency or a due mean.

Aristotle

Happiness is more effectually dispensed to mankind under a republican form of government than any other.

George Washington

The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican? It is evident that no other form would be reconcileable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the revolution; or with that honourable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.

James Madison

This is a human form in which every Divine entity, every Divine principle, that is to say, all the names and forms ascribed by man to God, are manifest... You are very fortunate that you have the chance to experiences the bliss of the vision of the form, which is the form of all gods, now, in this life itself.

Sathya Sai Baba

Let the foundation of thy affection be virtue, then make the building as rich as glorious as thou canst; if the foundation be beauty or wealth, and the building virtue, the foundation is too weak for the building, and it will fall: happy is he, the palace of whose affection is founded upon virtue, walled with riches glazed with beauty, and roofed with honor.

Francis Quarles

The most perfect education ... is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent.

Mary Wollstonecraft

It is my personal conviction that almost any one of the newborn states of the world would far rather embrace Communism or any other form of dictatorship than acknowledge the political domination of another government, even though that brought to each citizen a far higher standard of living.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.

George Washington

Any nations right to a form of government and economic system of its own choosing is inalienable. Any nations attempt to dictate to other nations their form of government is indefensible.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.