John Adams quotes:

Send

I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles. -- Gavin Bryars
Tom Hooper had done 'John Adams,' and David Lynch did 'Twin Peaks.' I figured I could do eight hours of television, and I wanted to. -- Cary Fukunaga
Hyperbole has been part of elections since the days of John Adams, and there's nobody better than Joe Biden to give us a little hyperbole, as we all know. -- Stephen Pagliuca
Every White House has had its intellectuals, but very few presidents have been intellectuals themselves - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, the list more or less stops there. -- Jonathan Raban
Look, in 1800 the sainted Thomas Jefferson arranged to hire a notorious slanderer named James Callender, who worked as a writer at a Republican newspaper in Richmond, Va. Read some of what he wrote about John Adams. This was a personal slander. -- Karl Rove
At noon, on the Fourth of July, 1826, while the Liberty Bell was again sounding its old message to the people of Philadelphia, the soul of Thomas Jefferson passed on; and a few hours later John Adams entered into rest, with the name of his old friend upon his lips. -- Allen Johnson
My first day on the set of 'John Adams', I was just supposed to fly to Virginia for a costume fitting. But the director figured, why not shoot it, too? So they threw me into a dress that didn't fit, gave me lines I hadn't seen, in a dialect I didn't know, and two screaming, arching infants. -- Mamie Gummer
I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans. The Fourth Amendment was what we fought the Revolution over! John Adams said it was the spark that led to our war for independence, and I'm proud of standing for the Bill of Rights, and I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights. -- Rand Paul
Bill Clinton outshines John Adams in that regard. -- Nat Hentoff
Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams -- David McCullough
If not for John Adams leading a revolution against Great Britain...This would be the BAFTAs. -- Tom Hanks
By 1782 [John Adams] had come to feel for [Benjamin] Franklin "no other sentiments than Contempt or Abhorrence." -- Gordon S. Wood
As John Adams said, all democracies will eventually self-destruct. We seem to be doing it very quickly. -- Rosanne Cash
[Benjamin] Franklin may be a great philosopher, [John Adams] told his diary in 1779, but "as a Legislator in America he has done very little." -- Gordon S. Wood
[John Adams' writings] had indicted the United States for slavishly copying the English constitution by erecting bicameral legislatures in their state constitutions, most drafted in 1776. -- Gordon S. Wood
Americans, [John Adams] wrote in 1780, believed that their "revolution is as much for the benefit of the generality of Mankind in Europe, as for their own." -- Gordon S. Wood
[John Adams] is impressed with [Tomas] Jefferson's learning, but noted his silence during the debates in the Congress: "I never heard him utter three Sentences together." -- Gordon S. Wood
How hard have those intolerant of John Adams's perspective worked to strip from young people any hope of knowing the concepts and truths that help deal with life? -- Foster Friess
[John Adams] experience with the French philosophers only convinced him further of the need for a bicameral legislature representing the two principal social orders and, equally important, an independent executive. -- Gordon S. Wood
John Adams was a farmer, Abraham Lincoln a small town lawyer. Plato and Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate wisdom and judgement with occupation is at best insulting. -- Mark Sheppard
[John Adams] always felt that his contribution to bringing about independence went unappreciated, especially after the 1790s when [Tomas] Jefferson began to be lauded as the "author" of the Declaration of Independence. -- Gordon S. Wood
[John Adams] diary, of course, is even more revealing of his feelings. Both his letters to [his wife] Abigail and his diary tell us what he really thinks about people and events. -- Gordon S. Wood
There are plenty of Minutemen. People willing to be Minutemen. Where are the people that want to be George Washington? Where are the Benjamin Franklins? Where is Sam Adams? Where is John Adams? -- Beck
When John Quincy Adams in the Netherlands was placed with elementary students and belittled because he did not speak Dutch, either the author or John Adams accuses school authorities of "littleness of soul". -- Paul C. Nagel
I've had the philosophy that John Adams expressed, in the kind of system that we're trying to create in this country: that this is a system for moral people. It will work for no other. -- Charles Koch
By the time [John Adams] came to write his Defence of the Constitutions of the United States in 1787 he had as dark a view of the American character as that of any critic in our history. -- Gordon S. Wood
When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, "My bursting heart must find vent at my pen. -- David McCullough
John Adams, second president of the United States, wrote that our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.... George Washington warned us never to indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. -- Joe Lieberman
[ Massachusetts constitution] was [John Adams] attempt to justify that structure by the traditional notion of social estates - that the executive represented the monarchical estate, the senate the aristocratic estate, and the house of representatives the estate of the people. -- Gordon S. Wood
My - mine is based on the fact that Bill Clinton has done - and I'm - this sounds like hyperbole, but he has done more harm to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights than any president since John Adams. -- Nat Hentoff
A mutual friend, Benjamin Rush, brought [Tomas Jefferson and John Adams] together in 1812, and they went on to exchange letters for the rest of their lives. But in their correspondence they tended to avoid the most controversial issues, such as slavery. -- Gordon S. Wood
American history offers no parallel to the friendship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, spanning the first half century of the Republic. . . . The publication, in full and integrated form, of the remarkable correspondence between these two eminent men is a notable event. -- Dumas Malone
[John Adams's] vividly descriptive prose is supremely quotable. Adams wears his heart on his sleeve and reveals all of his ambitions, doubts, and insecurities, especially in his diary, which is one of the greatest and most readable in all of American literature. -- Gordon S. Wood
[Letter to John Adams]The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter (Works, Vol. iv, p. 365). -- Thomas Jefferson
--
I think [John Adams] developed a much deeper suspicion of France and the other European powers than he had earlier. He lost much if not all of the utopian thinking about international politics and diplomacy expressed in his Model Treaty of 1776 and became much more cynical about the world. -- Gordon S. Wood
Upon my return from the army to Baltimore in the winter of 1777, I sat next to John Adams in Congress, and upon my whispering to him and asking him if he thought we should succeed in our struggle with Great Britain, he answered me, "Yes-if we fear God and repent of our sins." -- Benjamin Rush
I've chosen not to challenge the rule of law, because in our system there really is no intermediate step between a Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. When the Supreme Court makes a decision, no matter how strongly one disagrees with it, one faces a choice are we, in John Adams' phrase, a nation of laws, or is it a contest made on raw power? -- Al Gore
When he is wounded, I bleed. {page 262 of John Adams} -- Abigail Adams
The economic answer to the world's problems is John Adams, not [Karl] Marx. -- John Ringo
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'. -- John Adams
Ambition distorts even memory itself. John Quincy Adams -- Paul C. Nagel
John Quincy Adams strove to escape commonplace thoughts. -- Paul C. Nagel
It was [John's Adams] Massachusetts constitution if anything that influenced people. -- Gordon S. Wood
[John] Adams never hid his jealousy and resentment of the other Founders, especially Benjamin Franklin. -- Gordon S. Wood
The world shall retire from me before I shall retire from the world. John Quincy Adams -- Paul C. Nagel
All that I am my mother made me. - John Quincy Adams. Children and mothers never truly part... -- Charlotte Gray
Do not shout at me, Mr. Quill," said John [Adams]. "Justice may be blind, but she is not deaf. -- Orson Scott Card
I carry too much of the week into the Sabbath , and too little of the Sabbath into the week. John Quincy Adams -- Paul C. Nagel
John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy, but he was actively involved. -- Michele Bachmann
After [Tomas] Jefferson's defeat of [John] Adams in the presidential election of 1800, they didn't communicate with one another for more than a decade. -- Gordon S. Wood
The life-changing encounters that John Quincy Adams made as an adolescent on his own in Stockholm began with a friendship he struck up at a bookstore. -- Paul C. Nagel
I think [John] Adams was correct when he said that his May resolutions were "an Epocha, a decisive Event," and tantamount to a declaration of independence. -- Gordon S. Wood
The relationship between [John] Adams and [Tomas] Jefferson was extraordinary. They differed on every conceivable issue, except on the Revolution and the love of their country. -- Gordon S. Wood
[John] Adams was the best and most colorful stylist among the Founders. Although [Tomas] Jefferson is widely regarded as the smoothest writer, Adams is by far the most engaging and imaginative. -- Gordon S. Wood
The Declaration [of Independence] was a committee report, and [Tomas] Jefferson was simply the draftsman. [John] Adams's crucial role in bringing about independence in the Continental Congress has tended to get forgotten. -- Gordon S. Wood

Send