John Quincy Adams Quotes - Page 2

I do conscientiously and sincerely believe that the Order of Freemasonry, if not the greatest, is one of the greatest moral and political evils under which the Union is now laboring ... a conspiracy of the few against the equal rights of the many ...Masonry ought forever to be abolished. It is wrong - essentially wrong - a seed of evil, which can never produce any good.

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

All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.

[I believe in the] rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.

I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.

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.

My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising. It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day. It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.

There is such seduction in a library of good books that I cannot resist the temptation to luxuriate in reading.

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

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.

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

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

The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.

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.

From the day of the Declaration...they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct.

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

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.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. Sir Anthony Hopkins portrayal of me was adequate. I do believe that my sideburns were of substantially higher quality, however.

Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth. 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. Always vote for a principle, though you vote alone, and you may cherish the sweet reflection that your vote is never lost. America, in the assembly of nations, has uniformly spoken among them the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights.

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

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.

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.

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.

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