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John Adams Quotes about Freedom

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Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

John Adams
Suicide, Freedom, Suicidal
Letter from John Adams to John Taylor, 15 Apr. 1814

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

John Adams
Children, Freedom, Patriotic
John Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.197

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

John Adams
Freedom, Patriotic, History
Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.173, UPNE

The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.

John Adams
Freedom, Writing, Power
A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law (1765)

Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

John Adams
Freedom, Government, Forever
Abigail Adams, John Adams, L. H. Butterfield, Marc Friedlaender, Mary-Jo Kline (1975). “The Book of Abigail and John: Selected Letters of the Adams Family, 1762-1784”, p.95, UPNE

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

John Adams
Education, Freedom, Knowledge
'A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law' (1765)

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

John Adams
Inspirational, Trust, Freedom
'Notes for an Oration at Braintree' (Spring 1772)

[L]iberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

John Adams
Freedom, Father, Blood
Joseph E. SPRAGUE, John Adams (1826). “An Eulogy on John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, etc”, p.36

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

John Adams
Freedom, Power, Self
John Adams, George A. Peek, Jr. (2003). “The Political Writings of John Adams: Representative Selections”, p.196, Hackett Publishing

It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice.

John Adams
Horse, Kings, Freedom
John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1854). “Works: with a life of the author”, p.546

[A] republic . . . [is] a government, in which the property of the public, or people, and of every one of them was secure and protected by law . . . implies liberty; because property cannot be secured unless the man be at liberty to acquire, use or part with it, at his discretion, and unless he have his personal liberty of life and limb, motion and rest, for that purpose.

John Adams
Freedom, Men, Law
John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.454

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

John Adams
Freedom, Laughter, Writing
Letter to Thomas Jefferson, 15 July 1817

[T]he liberty, the unalienable, indefeasible rights of men, the honor and dignity of human nature, the grandeur and glory of the public, and the universal happiness of individuals, were never so skillfully and successfully consulted as in that most excellent monument of human art, the common law of England.

John Adams
Art, Freedom, Men
John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.440