"The National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman."
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Quote collection
John Adams quotes (page 6 of 21)
406 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government."
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"While all other sciences have advanced, that of government is at a standstill - little better understood, little better practiced now than three or four thousand years ago."
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"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."
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"The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity."
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"I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world."
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"I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof."
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"A taste for literature and a turn for business, united in the same person, never fails to make a great man."
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"If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?"
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"This is a revolution, damn it! We're going to have to offend somebody!"
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"But I must submit all my Hopes and Fears, to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the Faith may be, I firmly believe."
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"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."
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"This is my religion ... joy and exaltation in my own existence ... so go ahead and snarl ... bite ... howl, you Calvinistic divines and all you who say I am no Christian. I say you are not Christian."
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"God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world."
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"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
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"When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone."
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"A militia law, requiring all men, or with very few exceptions besides cases of conscience, to be provided with arms and ammunition... is always a wise institution, and, in the present circumstances of our country, indispensable."
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"Before any great things are accomplished, a memorable change must be made in the system of education...to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher."
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"Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner."
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"Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society."
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