John Quincy Adams
The natural state of mankind ... and I know that this is a controversial idea... is freedom... And the proof is the lengths to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it once lost. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try again, against all odds, against all prejudices.Collection: Freedom
The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult.Collection: Government
A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.Collection: Thinking
The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented . . . no insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth.Collection: Country
I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.Collection: Learning
Our Constitution rests on the good sense and the respect of the American people.Collection: People
The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth.Collection: Gratitude
It is essential..that you should form and adopt certain rules or principles, for the government of your own conduct and temper. Unless you have such rules and principles, there will be numberless occasions on which you will have no guide for your government but your passions..It is in the Bible, you must learn them, and from the Bible how to practice them.Collection: Bible
The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.Collection: Life
So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the debts and defraying the expenses of the community, its operation should be adapted as much as possible to suit the burden with equal hand upon all in proportion with their ability of bearing it without oppression.Collection: Hands
Is it not that in the chain of human events, the birthday of a nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?Collection: Government
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.Collection: Believe
The best guarantee against the abuse of power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections.Collection: Abuse
The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.Collection: Fall
A man's diary is a record in youth of his sentiments, in middle age of his actions, in old age of his reflections.Collection: Reflection
May our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.Collection: Country
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. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made 'bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God' (Isaiah 52:10).Collection: Christian
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.Collection: Powerful
The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws.Collection: Religious
His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison.Collection: Sarcastic
To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself, and enlarges the sphere of existence.Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Fall
The law is an artificial human construct, quite arbitrary, and of absolutely no use anywhere else but in a court of law!Collection: Law
We know the redemption must come.Collection: Redemption
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!Collection: Country
My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away... the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances His disciples in asserting that He was God.Collection: Sometimes
I have made it a practice for several years to read the Bible through in the course of every year. I usually devote to this reading the first hour after I rise every morning. As, including the Apocrypha, it contains about fourteen hundred chapters, and as I meet with occasional interruptions, when this reading is for single days, and sometimes for weeks, or even months, suspended, my rule is to read five chapters every morning, which leaves an allowance of about one-forth of the time for such interruptions.Collection: Morning
Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.Collection: Religious
The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God. It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind.Collection: Bible
To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs.Collection: Hands
The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.Collection: Bible
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.Collection: Christian
A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair.Collection: Heart
We know the redemption must come. The time and the manner of its coming we know not: It may come in peace, or it may come in blood; but whether in peace or in blood, LET IT COME.Collection: Blood
The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not.Collection: Government
It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that [people] are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future.Collection: Inspirational Life
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.Collection: Art
Religion, charity, pure benevolence, and morals, mingled up with superstitious rites and ferocious cruelty, form in their combination institutions the most powerful and the most pernicious that have ever afflicted mankind.Collection: Powerful
Life is a problem; mortal man was made to solve the solemn problem right or wrong.Collection: Life
The great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing nation are so linked in union together that no permanent cause of prosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influence to the others. All these interests are alike under the protecting power of the legislative authority, and the duties of the representative bodies are to conciliate them in harmony together.Collection: Together
I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once ever year.... My custom is, to read four to five chapters every morning immediately after rising from my bed. I employs about an hour of my time.Collection: Morning
In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.Collection: Knowledge
I want a warm and faithful friend, To cheer the adverse hour; Who ne'er to flatter will descend, Nor bend the knee to power,- A friend to chide me when I'm wrong, My inmost soul to see; And that my friendship prove as strong For him as his for me.Collection: Friendship
What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the fields and vallies, which a beneficent God has formed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness?Collection: History
The public history of all countries, and all ages, is but a sort of mask, richly colored. The interior working of the machinery must be foul.Collection: Country
[America's] glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.Collection: Practice
America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.Collection: Peace
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.Collection: Bible
The magistrate is the servant not of his own desires, not even of the people, but of his GodCollection: People