Top 250 John Adams Quotes (2023 Update)

1. “Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.”

— John Adams

Featured in: Opportunity Quotes

2. “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”

— John Adams

Featured in: Philosophy Quotes

3. “Let justice be done though the heavens should fall.”

— John Adams

4. “To be good, and to do good, is all we have to do.”

— John Adams

Featured in: Volunteer Quotes

5. “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

— John Adams

6. “Those who trade liberty for security have neither.”

— John Adams

7. “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”

— John Adams

8. “Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.”

— John Adams

9. “One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.”

— John Adams

10. “We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!”

— John Adams

11. “I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities, so that their children can study painting, poetry and other fine things.”

— John Adams

12. “Ideology is the science of idiots.”

— John Adams

13. “Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”

— John Adams

14. “Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write .”

— John Adams

15. “I would quarrel with both parties, and with every individual of each, before I would subjugate my understanding, or prostitute my tongue or pen to either.”

— John Adams

16. “I am a revolutionary, so my son can be a farmer, so his son can be a poet.”

— John Adams

17. “Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

— John Adams

18. “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

19. “To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.”

— John Adams

20. “We have no Constitution which functions in the absence of a moral people.”

— John Adams

21. “We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it.”

— John Adams

22. “The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”

— John Adams

23. “The happiness of society is the end of government.”

— John Adams

24. “Mankind will in time discover that unbridled majorities are as tyrannical and cruel as unlimited despots.”

— John Adams

25. “Swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my country was my unalterable determination.”

— John Adams

26. “It’s of more importance to community that innocence should be protected than it is that guilt should be punished.”

— John Adams

27. “Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.”

— John Adams

28. “People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.”

— John Adams

29. “Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. What a Utopia! What a paradise this region would be.”

— John Adams

30. “Thanks to God that he gave me stubborness when I know I am right.”

— John Adams

31. “Ambition is one of the ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable.”

— John Adams

32. “When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.”

— John Adams

33. “A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”

— John Adams

34. “I am determined to control events, not be controlled by them.”

— John Adams

35. “Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.”

— John Adams

36. “There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others.”

— John Adams

37. “Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion.”

— John Adams

38. “I had heard my father say that he never knew a piece of land run away or break.”

— John Adams

39. “The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.”

— John Adams

40. “There is no greater guilt than the unneccessary war.”

— John Adams

41. “If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?”

— John Adams

42. “My history of the Jesuits is not elegantly written, but is supported by unquestionable authorities, is very particular and very horrible. Their restoration is indeed “a step toward darkness,” cruelty, perfidy, despotism, death and I wish we were out of danger of bigotry and Jesuitism.”

— John Adams

43. “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.”

— John Adams

44. “I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.”

— John Adams

Featured in: Reading Quotes

45. “When public virtue is gone, when the national spirit is fled the republic is lost in essence, though it may still exist in form.”

— John Adams

46. “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”

— John Adams

47. “Power must never be trusted without a check.”

— John Adams

48. “Slavery is a foul contagion in the human character.”

— John Adams

49. “Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1,500 years?”

— John Adams

50. “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

— John Adams