Abigail Adams Quotes

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.

Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.

Great learning and superior abilities...will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.

Many of our disappointments and much of our unhappiness arise from our forming false notions of things and persons.

I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.

A patriot without religion in my estimation is as great a paradox as an honest Man without the fear of God. Is it possible that he whom no moral obligations bind, can have any real Good Will towards Men?

We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could... That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.

To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.

No one is without their difficulties, whether in High, or low Life, & every person knows best where their own shoe pinches.

Its never to late to get back on your feet though we wont live forever make sure you accomplish what you were put here for

History is not a web woven with innocent hands. Among all the causes which degrade and demoralize men, power is the most constant and most active.

These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

My Dear Son... remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.

The habits of a vigorous mind are born in contending with difficulties.

If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers, we should have learned women. The world perhaps would laugh at me, and accuse me of vanity, but you I know have a mind too enlarged and liberal to disregard the Sentiment. If much depends as is allowed upon the early Education of youth and the first principals which are instill'd take the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments in women.

If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.

A people may let a king fall, yet still remain a people, but if a king let his people slip from him, he is no longer a king.

Great necessities call out great virtues.

May your mind be thoroughly impressed with the absolute necessity of universal virtue and goodness, as the only sure road to happiness, and may you walk therein with undeviating steps.

A people fired ... with love of their country and of liberty, a zeal for the public good, and a noble emulation of glory, will not be disheartened or dispirited by a succession of unfortunate events. But like them, may we learn by defeat the power of becoming invincible.

My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.

What is the history of mighty kingdoms and nations, but a detail of the ravages and cruelties of the powerful over the weak?

Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your sex.