John Quotes

I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame

The divine science of government is the science of social happiness, and the blessings of society depend entirely on the constitutions of government.

This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and ever.

I desire no other inscription over my gravestone than: 'Here lies John Adams, who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France in the year 1800'.

When you see a good move, sit on your hands and find a better one.

One sailor will do us more good than two soldiers.

The Christian Religion as I understand it is the best.

If the empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained?

Politics are the divine science, after all.

I wish I could lay down beside her and die too.

It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the constitution and course of nature the foundations of the distinction.

You may have the bishop pair but I have the ultimate advantage; I am the better player!

The frightful engines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and Calvinistical good-nature never failed to terrify me exceedingly whenever I thought of preaching.

Pray how does your asparagus perform?

[I] never understood [what a republican government was and] I believe no other man ever did or ever will.

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.

Popularity, next to virtue and wisdom, ought to be aimed at; for it is the dictate of wisdom, and is necessary to the practice of virtue inmost.

Thomas Jefferson survives.

If there is a form of government, then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?

I was very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it [law of nature], as a resource to which we might be driven by Parliament much sooner than we were aware.

Human government is more or less perfect as it approaches nearer or diverges farther from the imitation of this perfect plan of divine and moral government.

The rights of Englishmen are derived from God, not from king or Parliament, and would be secured by the study of history, law, and tradition.

It is much easier to pull down a government, in such a conjuncture of affairs as we have seen, than to build up, at such a season as the present.

Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.

During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight and the westsight that appeared in that august assembly.

I am quite content to come home and go to Farming, be a select Man, and owe no Man any Thing but good Will. There I can get a little health and teach my Boys to be Lawyers.

You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.

I drink no cider, but feast on Philadelphia beer.

The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.

It is an observation of one of the profoundest inquirers into human affairs that a revolution of government is the strongest proof that can be given by a people of their virtue and good sense.

No seed shall perish which the soul hath sown.

Who wants to shake the hand of the first man to put it to America's sweetheart.

That's how things are these days: everything must move aside to make room for the new, all the time.

But then, it's probably different when you're young.

A new life? There’s not such thing. It was only in the magazine headlines that people got a new life. Stopped drinking or taking drugs, found a new love. But the same life.

This wasn't the way he had expected his life to be. It worked, but that was about all. Happiness had got lost somewhere along the way.

No one thought of anything but themselves. My happiness, my future was the only thing you heard. Real love is to offer your life at the feet of another, and that's what people today are incapable of

For a few seconds Oskar saw through Eli's eyes. And what he saw was...himself. Only much better, more handsome, stronger than what he thought of himself. Seen with love." (Let the Right One In)

Are you OLD?" "No. I'm only twelve. But I've been that for a long time.

Debates must take place in an atmosphere of courtesy.

But while the American Constitution was the child of war, ours grew out of discussion, bargaining and negotiation.

In the long and dogged crusade that the human race has fought in favor of democracy, the ideal of liberty, of freedom, has always been the goal.

A careful and sympathetic sense of humour can also be a great asset when there is need to get out of difficult situations gracefully.

as I became Speaker in 1986, I made a point of setting up a public information office to respond to requests and provide information about Parliament and how it functions.

On a craggy bluff above the majestic Ottawa River stands the remarkable embodiment of our system of governance: Parliament.

In the stock market... You can be right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons.

The once-surprising existence of non-Euclidean models of Euclid's first four axioms can be seen as a sort of mathematical joke.

One must give up the fantasy of a perspicacious gunslinger/investor outwitting the market.

We need to accept that some people are camp and some people are butch. Some people are pretty and some people are average, but we all fit.