John Quincy Adams Quotations

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as attendants in the retinue of strong passions.

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once ever year.... My custom is, to read four to five chapters every morning immediately after rising from my bed. I employs about an hour of my time....

I told him it was law logic-an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else.

This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.

The Sermon on the Mount commands me to lay up for myself treasures, not upon earth, but in Heaven. My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ.

I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.

His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.

The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.

Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize Man still is bound to rescue or maintain; That nature's God commands the slave to rise, And on the oppressor's head to break the chain. Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, Till not a slave shall on this earth by found.

America is a friend of freedom everywhere, but a custodian only of our own.

So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

A man's diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.

We understand now, we've been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.

Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day (the 4th of July)? Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior?.

Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.

It is essential..that you should form and adopt certain rules or principles, for the government of your own conduct and temper. Unless you have such rules and principles, there will be numberless occasions on which you will have no guide for your government but your passions..It is in the Bible, you must learn them, and from the Bible how to practice them.

The attainment of knowledge is the high and exclusive attribute of man, among the numberless myriads of animated beings, inhabitants of the terrestrial globe. On him alone is bestowed, by the bounty of the Creator of the universe, the power and the capacity of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is the attribute of his nature which at once enables him to improve his condition upon earth, and to prepare him for the enjoyment of a happier existence hereafter.

The political system of the United States is essentially extra-European. To stand in firm and cautious independence of all entanglement in the European system has been a cardinal point of their policy under every administration of their government from the peace of 1783 to this day...Every year's experience rivets it more deeply in the principles and opinions of the nation.

I want a warm and faithful friend, To cheer the adverse hour; Who ne'er to flatter will descend, Nor bend the knee to power,- A friend to chide me when I'm wrong, My inmost soul to see; And that my friendship prove as strong For him as his for me.

The four most miserable years of my life were my four years in the presidency.

The public history of all countries, and all ages, is but a sort of mask, richly colored. The interior working of the machinery must be foul.

Let us consider an alternative style of thinking, which we can call 'creative thinking.' It is playfully instructive to note that the word 'reactive' and the word 'creative' are made up of exactly the same letters. The only difference between the two is that you 'C' [see] differently.

And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of order, the Fountain of justice, and the Protector, in all ages of the world, of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its government, and give it all possible success and duration, consistent with the ends of His providence.

The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God. It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind.

Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.

The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.

Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, till not a slave shall on this earth be found.

I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong.

The best guarantee against the abuse of power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections.

The imagination of a eunuch dwells more and longer upon the material of love than that of man or woman ... supplying, so far as he can, by speculation, the place of pleasures he can no longer enjoy.

Man wants but little here below Nor wants that little long, 'Tis not with me exactly so; But 'tis so in the song. My wants are many, and, if told, Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more.

Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God.

Westward the star of empire takes its way.

Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls.

The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult.

From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future.

Human life, from the cradle to the grave, is a school. At every period of his existence man wants a teacher. His pilgrimage upon earth is but a term of childhood, in which he is to be educated for the manhood of a brighter world. As the child must be educated for manhood upon earth, so the man must be educated upon earth, for heaven; and finally that where the foundation is not laid in time, the superstructure can not rise for eternity.

The art of making love, muffled up in furs, in the open air, with the thermometer at Zero, is a Yankee invention.

The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not.

Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations.

The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth.

In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.

If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled.

It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that [people] are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future.

The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented . . . no insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth.

I appear, my fellow-citizens, in your presence and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities of religious obligation to the faithful performance of the duties allotted to me in the station to which I have been called.

To a man of liberal education, the study of history is not only useful, and important, but altogether indispensable, and with regard to the history contained in the Bible ...it is not so much praiseworthy to be acquainted with as it is shameful to be ignorant of it.

Individual liberty is individual power.

Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel.

Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error.

Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers and of love for our posterity.

This mode of electioneering suited neither my taste nor my principles. I thought it equally unsuitable to my personal character and to the station in which I am placed.

America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.

I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their G-d!

There is nothing so deep and nothing so shallow which political enmity will not turn to account.

Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union.

The origin of the political relations between the United States and France is coeval with the first years of our independence. The memory of it is interwoven with that of our arduous struggle for national existence. Weakened as it has occasionally been since that time, it can by us never be forgotten, and we should hail with exultation the moment which should indicate a recollection equally friendly in spirit on the part of France.

Our Constitution rests on the good sense and the respect of the American people.

I would much rather be found guilty of making a serious mistake in judgment, than to be accused of being even a little bit insincere.

Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Saviour?

My stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse.

I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service; and knowing that "except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain," with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit with humble but fearless confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.

The mere title of lawyer is sufficient to deprive a man of the public confidence. ... The most innocent and irreproachable life cannot guard a lawyer against the hatred of his fellow citizens.

I have made it a practice for several years to read the Bible through in the course of every year. I usually devote to this reading the first hour after I rise every morning. As, including the Apocrypha, it contains about fourteen hundred chapters, and as I meet with occasional interruptions, when this reading is for single days, and sometimes for weeks, or even months, suspended, my rule is to read five chapters every morning, which leaves an allowance of about one-forth of the time for such interruptions.

The natural state of mankind ... and I know that this is a controversial idea... is freedom... And the proof is the lengths to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it once lost. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try again, against all odds, against all prejudices.

We know the redemption must come.

The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.

No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible.

The law is an artificial human construct, quite arbitrary, and of absolutely no use anywhere else but in a court of law!

But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow... Like a Coach and six - the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.

The gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.

Find a mission that you can give yourself over to and then spend your days moving that mission forward. Man is made so that when anything fires his soul the impossibilities vanish. The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.

It is so obvious to every reasonable being that he did not make himself, and the world in which he inhabits could as little make itself, that the moment we begin to exercise the power of reflection, it seems impossible to escape the conviction that there is a Creator.

The Constitution had provided that all the public functionaries of the Union...should be under oath or affirmation for its support. The homage of religious faith was thus superadded to all the obligations of temporal law to give it strength.

The magistrate is the servant not of his own desires, not even of the people, but of his God

To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs.

Whether to the nation or to the state, no service can be or ever will be rendered by a more able or a more faithful public servant.

A barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and hardly could spell his own name.... One of our tribe of great men who turn disease to commodity...he craves the sympathy for sickness as a portion of his glory.

A gentleman of one of the first fortunes upon the continent...sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the cause of his country.

To believe that everyone is honest is folly, but to believe that no one is honest is worse.

A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair.

Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government.

My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away... the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances His disciples in asserting that He was God.

The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in [Great Britain] than in any other place that I ever saw.

It has been my custom for many years to read the Bible in its entirety once a year

The American continents, by the free and independent condition that they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation byany European powers? In the wars of the Europeanpowers inmattersrelating to ourselves, we have never taken any part; nor does it comport with our policy to do so.

Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union... A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would now be certainly necessary... The Union might then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation.

Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.

The great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community ... that in the operation of human institutions upon social action, self-love and social may be made the same.

A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.

About one-half of the members of Congress are seekers for office at the nomination of the President. Of the remainder, at least one-half have some appointment or favor to ask for their relatives.