Top 100 John Quincy Adams Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

— John Quincy Adams

Featured in: Leadership Quotes, Encouragement Quotes, Graduation Quotes, Uplifting Quotes, Important Quotes

2. “Duty is ours, results are God’s.”

— John Quincy Adams

Featured in: Duty Quotes

3. “Individual liberty is individual power.”

— John Quincy Adams

Featured in: Quotes on Liberty

4. “Whoever tells the best story wins.”

— John Quincy Adams

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

5. “Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.”

— John Quincy Adams

6. “I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet.”

— John Quincy Adams

7. “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone.”

— John Quincy Adams

8. “I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.”

— John Quincy Adams

9. “From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future.”

— John Quincy Adams

10. “A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair.”

— John Quincy Adams

11. “Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel.”

— John Quincy Adams

12. “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”

— John Quincy Adams

13. “The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.”

— John Quincy Adams

14. “Find a mission that you can give yourself over to and then spend your days moving that mission forward. Man is made so that when anything fires his soul the impossibilities vanish. The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.”

— John Quincy Adams

15. “The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.”

— John Quincy Adams

16. “The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.”

— John Quincy Adams

17. “The freedom of the press should be inviolate.”

— John Quincy Adams

18. “Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government.”

— John Quincy Adams

19. “A man’s diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.”

— John Quincy Adams

20. “This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom’s hallowed shade.”

— John Quincy Adams

21. “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. Sir Anthony Hopkins portrayal of me was adequate. I do believe that my sideburns were of substantially higher quality, however.”

— John Quincy Adams

22. “Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benedictions and her prayers.”

— John Quincy Adams

23. “America is a friend of freedom everywhere, but a custodian only of our own.”

— John Quincy Adams

24. “The four most miserable years of my life were my four years in the presidency.”

— John Quincy Adams

25. “Westward the star of empire takes its way.”

— John Quincy Adams

26. “The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the Legislator and Savior of the world.”

— John Quincy Adams

27. “I told him it was law logic-an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else.”

— John Quincy Adams

28. “Posterity – you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.”

— John Quincy Adams

29. “The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.”

— John Quincy Adams

30. “Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.”

— John Quincy Adams

31. “We understand now, we’ve been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.”

— John Quincy Adams

32. “The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not.”

— John Quincy Adams

33. “So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society. I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.”

— John Quincy Adams

34. “The magistrate is the servant not of his own desires, not even of the people, but of his God.”

— John Quincy Adams

35. “The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the Divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth...”

— John Quincy Adams

36. “The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God. It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind.”

— John Quincy Adams

37. “Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.”

— John Quincy Adams

38. “The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.”

— John Quincy Adams

39. “The Sermon on the Mount commands me to lay up for myself treasures, not upon earth, but in Heaven. My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ.”

— John Quincy Adams

40. “The law is an artificial human construct, quite arbitrary, and of absolutely no use anywhere else but in a court of law!”

— John Quincy Adams

41. “Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God.”

— John Quincy Adams

42. “It is no slight testimonial, both to the merit and worth of Christianity, that in all ages since its promulgation the great mass of those who have risen to eminence by their profound wisdom and integrity have recognized and reverenced Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of the living God.”

— John Quincy Adams

43. “His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.”

— John Quincy Adams

44. “There is in the clergy of all Christian denominations a time-serving, cringing, subservient morality, as wide from the spirit of the gospel as it is from the intrepid assertion and vindication of truth.”

— John Quincy Adams

45. “I would much rather be found guilty of making a serious mistake in judgment, than to be accused of being even a little bit insincere.”

— John Quincy Adams

46. “America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”

— John Quincy Adams

47. “I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their G-d!”

— John Quincy Adams

48. “Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls.”

— John Quincy Adams

49. “I appear, my fellow-citizens, in your presence and in that of Heaven to bind myself by the solemnities of religious obligation to the faithful performance of the duties allotted to me in the station to which I have been called.”

— John Quincy Adams

50. “The art of making love, muffled up in furs, in the open air, with the thermometer at Zero, is a Yankee invention.”

— John Quincy Adams