569 Quotes by John Adams

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.

The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole and must be willing to bear the expense of it.

I read my eyes out and can't read half enough...the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.

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.

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.

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

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, 'that the institution of youth should be accommodated to that form of government under which they live; forasmuch as it makes exceedingly for the preservation of the present government, whatsoever it be.

The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue.