"Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order."
John Adams"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."
John Adams"Fear is the foundation of most governments."
John Adams"Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people."
John Adams"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"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"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
John Adams"The happiness of society is the end of government."
John Adams"A government of laws, and not of men."
John Adams"My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
John Adams"The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it."
John Adams"Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write."
John Adams"In politics the middle way is none at all."
John Adams"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."
John Adams"Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases."
John Adams"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war."
John Adams