A Quote by John Adams

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic; this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.
There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.
Scandal breeds hatred; hatred begets division; division makes faction, and faction brings ruin.
In Sumter and other counties [in South Carolina] the whites are resorting to intimidation and violence to prevent the colored people from organizing for the elections. The division there is still on the color line. Substantially all the whites are Democrats and all the colored people are Republicans. There is no political principle in dispute between them. The whites have the intelligence, the property, and the courage which make power. The negroes are for the most part ignorant, poor, and timid. My view is that the whites must be divided there before a better state of things will prevail.
If you do something once, people will call it an accident. If you do it twice, they call it a coincidence. But do it a third time and you've just proven a natural law!
Other people will call me a rebel, but I just feel like I'm living my life and doing what I want to do. Sometimes people call that rebellion, especially when you're a woman.
Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.
Know that there is a great separation that must take place to overthrow the enemy ahead who has been coming in and taking away at an opportune time. I must rearrange My people's call so that their opportunity will be seen in a different way. Hear, today, the clarion call and know that it is a Gideon time upon My people.
Perhaps the artist who seeks dignity above all in his 'historia', ought to represent very few figures; for as paucity of words imparts majesty to a prince, provided histhoughts and orders are understood, so the presence of only the strictly necessary numbers of bodies confers dignity on a picture.
Something I don't like seeing in other people is naked ambition, when somebody is really pushing hard to get to where they want to be. That's the way I look at that word - like you must be stepping on someone to get there. And I've never been comfortable with that.
I represent poor people, I represent working people. I represent senior citizens. I represent family businesses. I represent people who don't have the wherewithal to hire overpriced Washington lobbyists and lawyers. I want to send the powers back to the states and the people.
I turned to leave and paused before the gap in the ruined wall. "One last thing, Your Majesty. I'd like a name I can put into my report, something shorter than typing out 'The Leader of the Southern Shapechanger Faction.' What should I call you?" "Lord." I rolled my eyes. He shrugged. "It's short.
Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be. Any individual who is able to raise $25 million to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent oil, or aerospace, or banking, or whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Certainly he will never represent the people of the country, and they know it. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress.
Every child is born sane, and then, slowly slowly, we civilize him - we call it the process of civilization. We prepare him to become part of the great culture, the great church, the great state to which we belong. Our whole politics is stupid, and then HE becomes stupid. Our whole education is ugly. Our politics means nothing but ambition, naked ambition - ambition for power. And only the lowest kind of people become interested in power.
You can always find people, ordinary people, who will support your particular view, so it becomes a politics of personality, especially at the presidential level. People often go for somebody that they like or somebody that they can identify with.
If you're governor of a state, and you have nothing to say when the president attacks the people that you represent, you are complicit.
There will always be, within a party, people who backed one candidate versus people who backed another, and there will be factions in the party, and there's always a little glee faction looking at the difficulty of the other faction.
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