Freedom Quotes by John Adams

Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist.

— John Adams

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

— John Adams

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

— John Adams

I shall have the liberty to think for myself.

— John Adams

Those who trade liberty for security have neither.

— John Adams

Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty.

— John Adams

Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

— John Adams

The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber, and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition.

— John Adams

There Are Two Ways to Enslave A Country…One is by the Sword, the Other is by Debt.

— John Adams

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

— John Adams

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

— John Adams

The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.

— John Adams

“And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people who have a right from the frame of their nature…

— John Adams

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

— John Adams

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity

— John Adams

The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they…

— John Adams

As unbalanced parties of every description can never tolerate a free inquiry of any kind, when employed against themselves, the license, and…

— John Adams

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all…

— John Adams

The people have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge - I…

— John Adams

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed,…

— John Adams

We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance…

— John Adams

I, poor creature, worn out with scribbling for my bread and my liberty, low in spirits and weak in health, must leave…

— John Adams

Let the pulpit resound with the doctrines and sentiments of religious liberty... Let us hear the dignity of his [man's] nature, and…

— John Adams

Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people being necessary for the preservation of their…

— John Adams

The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied…

— John Adams

...Cities may be rebuilt, and a People reduced to Poverty, may acquire fresh Property: But a Constitution of Government once changed from…

— John Adams

It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three…

— John Adams

Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the…

— John Adams

“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, 'that the institution of…

— John Adams

To suppose arms in the hands of citizens, to be used at individual discretion, except in private self-defense, or by partial orders…

— John Adams

“an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to…

— John Adams

“We think ourselves possessed, or at least we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects and of…

— John Adams

The essence of a free government consists in an effectual control of rivalries.

— John Adams

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

— John Adams

Liberty can no more exist without virtue and independence than the body can live and move without a soul.

— John Adams

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with…

— John Adams

I shall have liberty to think for myself without molesting others or being molested myself.

— John Adams

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a…

— John Adams

We must not then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul of man for its preservation.

— John Adams

Happiness, whether in despotism or democracy, whether in slavery or liberty, can never be found without virtue

— John Adams