A Pen is certainly an excellent Instrument, to fix a Mans Attention and to inflame his Ambition.
John Adams, 14 November 1760
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 1:168
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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.
John Adams, Argument for the Defense, Rex v. Wemms (Boston Massacre Trial),
3-4 December 1770
Legal Papers of John Adams, 3:269
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The Tea that bainfull weed is arrived. Great and I hope Effectual opposition has been made to the landing of it. To the publick papers I must refer you for perticuliars. You will there find that the proceedings of our Citizens have been United, Spirited and firm. The flame is kindled and like Lightning it catches from Soul to Soul. Great will be the devastation if not timely quenched or allayed by some more Lenient Measures.
Abigail Adams to Mercy Otis Warren, 5 December 1773
Adams Family Correspondence, 1:88
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The Dye is cast: The People have passed the River and cutt away the Bridge: last Night Three Cargoes of Tea, were emptied into the Harbour. This is the grandest, Event, which has ever yet happened Since, the Controversy, with Britain, opened!
John Adams to James Warren, 17 December 1773
Papers of John Adams, 2:1
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I wish most sincerely there was not a Slave in the province. It allways appeard a most iniquitious Scheme to me—fight ourselfs for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.
Abigail Adams to John Adams, 22 September 1774
Adams Family Correspondence, 1:162
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A government of laws, and not of men.
Often attributed to John Adams. First used by Adams, Letters of Novanglus, No. 7, [6 March 1775]
Papers of John Adams, 2:314
The phrase seems to originate with James Harrington, Politicaster, 1659
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The Events of War are uncertain: We cannot insure Success, but We can deserve it.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, 18 February 1776
Adams Family Correspondence, 1:349
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I agree with you, that in Politicks the Middle Way is none at all. If We finally fail in this great and glorious Contest, it will be by bewildering ourselves in groping after this middle Way.
John Adams to Horatio Gates, 23 March 1776
Papers of John Adams, 4:59
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I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I
suppose it will be necessary for you to make 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. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies
we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice,
or Representation.
Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March 1776
Adams Family Correspondence, 1:370
View a complete transcription of this letter
~
As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have
been told that our Struggle has loosened the bands of Government
every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedient—that
schools and Colledges were grown turbulent—that Indians slighted
their Guardians and Negroes grew insolent to their Masters. But
your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous
and powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented.—This
is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so saucy, I wont blot
it out.
Depend upon it, We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems. Altho they are in full Force, you know
they are little more than Theory. We dare not exert our Power in its full Latitude. We are obliged to go fair,
and softly, and in Practice you know We are the subjects. We have only the Name of Masters, and rather than
give up this, which would compleatly subject Us to the Despotism of the Peticoat, I hope General Washington,
and all our brave Heroes would fight.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1776
Adams Family Correspondence, 1:382
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The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to
believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought
to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be
solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one
End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, 3 July 1776
Adams Family Correspondence, 2:30
See the full text of this letter
~
It is really mortifying Sir, when a woman possessd of a common share of understanding considers the difference of Education between the male and female Sex, even in those families where Education is attended too. Every assistance and advantage which can be procured is afforded to the sons, whilst the daughters are totally neglected in point of Literature. Writing and Arithmetick comprise all their Learning. Why should children of the same parents be thus distinguished? . . . Nay why should your sex wish for such a disparity in those whom they one day intend for companions and associates. Pardon me Sir if I cannot help sometimes suspecting that this Neglect arises in some measure from an ungenerous jealosy of rivals near the Throne.
Abigail Adams to John Thaxter, 15 February 1778
Adams Family Correspondence, 2:391-392
~
I am but an ordinary Man. The Times alone have destined me to Fame—and even these have not been able
to give me, much. . . . Yet some great Events, some cutting Expressions, some mean <Scandals>
Hypocrisies, have at Times, thrown this Assemblage of Sloth, Sleep, and littleness into Rage a little like
a Lion.
John Adams, 26 April 1779
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 2:362-363
~
These are times in which a Genious 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. Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an orater, if he had not been roused, kindled and enflamed by the Tyranny of Catiline, Millo, Verres and Mark Anthony. The Habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All History will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruits of experience, not the Lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the Heart, then those qualities which would otherways lay dormant, wake into Life, and form the Character of the Hero and the Statesman.
Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, 19 January 1780
Adams Family Corresondence, 3:268
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I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My
sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation,
Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick,
Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, [post 12 May 1780]
Adams Family Correspondence, 3:342
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Amidst your Ardour for Greek and Latin I hope you will not forget your mother Tongue. Read Somewhat in the
English Poets every day. . . . You will never be alone, with a Poet in your Poket. You will never have an
idle Hour.
John Adams to John Quincy Adams, 14 May 1781
Adams Family Correspondence, 4:114
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You are afraid of the one—I, of the few. We agree perfectly that the many should have a full fair and
perfect Representation.—You are Apprehensive of Monarchy; I, of Aristocracy. I would therefore have
given more Power to the President and less to the Senate.
John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 6 December 1787
The Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. Lester J. Cappon, 1:213
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Public business my Son, must always be done by Somebody or other. If wise men decline it others will not. If honest men refuse it, others will not. . . . My advice to my children, is to maintain an independant Character, though in poverty and obscurity: neither riches nor illustr[ation] will console a man under the reflection that he has acted a mean, mercenary part, much less a dishonest one.
John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 2 September 1789
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But my country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office [the vice presidency]
that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived. And as I can do neither good nor evil,
I must be borne away by others, and meet the common fate.
John Adams to Abigail Adams, 19 December 1793
The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams, 1:460
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My little bark has been oversett in a squall of thunder and lightening and hail attended with a strong smell of sulphur.
John Adams to Thomas Boylston Adams, 17 December 1800
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A politician in this country must be the man of a party. I would fain be the man of my whole country.
John Quincy Adams, 28 January 1802
Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 1:249
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The government of the united States from 1789 to 1811 has been but a company of Engine Men. Their constant Employment has been, to spout Cold Water upon their own habitations built, if not of Hay and Stubble, with Wooden Timbers, boards Clapboards and Shingles, to prevent it being scortched by the Flames from Europe.
John Adams to Francis Adriaan Van der Kemp, 4 April 1811
~
The American Revolution was not a common event. Its effects and consequences have already been awful over a great part of the globe. And when and where are they to cease? But what do we mean be the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; . . . This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.
John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, 13 February 1818
Works of John Adams, 10:282-283
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The colonies had grown up under constitutions of government so different, there was so great a variety of religions, they were composed of so many different nations, their customs, manners, and habits had so little resemblance, and their intercourse had been so rare, and their knowledge of each other so imperfect, that to unite them in the same principles in theory and the same system of action, was certainly a very difficult enterprise. The complete accomplishment of it, in so short a time and by such simple means, was perhaps a singular example in the history of mankind. Thirteen clocks were made to strike together—a perfection of mechanism, which no artist had ever before effected.
John Adams to Hezekiah Niles, 13 February 1818
Works of John Adams, 10:283
~
A nation was born in a day—
“How many ages hence
“Shall this, their lofty scene, be acted o’er
“In states unborn, and accents yet unknown?”
It will be acted o’er, fellow-citizens, but it can never be repeated. It stands, and must for ever stand, alone, a beacon on the summit of the mountain, to which all the inhabitants of the earth may turn their eyes for a genial and saving light till time shall be lost in eternity, and this globe itself dissolve, nor leave a wreck behind. It stands for ever, a light of admonition to the rulers of men, a light of salvation and redemption to the oppressed. So long as this planet shall be inhabited by human beings, so long as man shall be of social nature, so long as government shall be necessary to the great moral purposes of society, and so long as it shall be abused to the purposes of oppression, so long shall this Declaration hold out to the sovereign and to the subject the extent and the boundaries of their respective rights and duties, founded in the laws of nature, and of nature’s God.
John Quincy Adams, An Address Delivered at the Request of a Committee of the Citizens of Washington; on the Occasion of Reading the Declaration of Independence, on the Fourth of July, 1821
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It would be superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war.
Charles Francis Adams to Lord John Russell, 5 September 1863
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Quotations
