What the Forefathers Said: John Adams
This is the second in a series that I am calling “What the Forefathers Said,” in which I will post quotes from America’s founding fathers that have just as much immediate importance today as when they were spoken.
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These statements are attributed to John Adams:
“Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.”
“Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.”
“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.”
“Power always thinks… that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
“Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.”
“The true source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think. . . . Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
“The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.”
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
"There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our constitution.”
“There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
“Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man’s life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.”
“The happiness of society is the end of government.”
“Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
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John Adams did NOT say:
……This was said by the fictional Adams in the 1969 musical “1776.”
2) "There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt"
3) “Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.”
…..The most reliable attribution for this exact quote is to John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S. president and son of John Adams.
4) “To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.”
…..Also a quote from John Quincy Adams.
Many other quotes are falsely attributed to John Adams and the other Founding Fathers, so one should fact check before disseminating them.
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If they are not listed above, please post your favorite John Adams quotes in the comments below.
Click HERE to read the first in this series (quotes from Thomas Jefferson).
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