Political Quotes by John Adams

One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress.

— John Adams

I am for making of terms annual, and for sending an entire new set every year.

— John Adams

Politics are a labyrinth without a clue.

— John Adams

The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a…

— John Adams

All great changes are irksome to the human mind, especially those which are attended with great dangers and uncertain effects.

— John Adams

Where annual elections end, there slavery begins ... Humility, patience, and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast…

— John Adams

They worry one another like mastiffs, scrambling for rank and pay like apes for nuts.

— John Adams

“If the way to do good to my country were to render myself popular, I could easily do it. But extravagant popularity…

— John Adams

Have you ever found in history, one single example of a nation, thoroughly corrupted, that was afterwards restored to virtue? And without…

— John Adams

The fundamental article of my political creed is that despotism, or limited sovereignty, or absolute power is the same [whether] in a…

— John Adams

I must study war and politics so that my children shall be free to study commerce, agriculture and other practicalities, so that…

— John Adams

Oh! the wisdom, the foresight and the hindsight and the rightsight and the leftsight, the northsight and the southsight, and the eastsight…

— John Adams

America is destined to be peopled by one nation, speaking one language, professing one general system of religious and political principles, and…

— John Adams

There is nothing I dread so much as the division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader,…

— John Adams

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts…

— John Adams

When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately…

— John Adams

Let us hear the dangers of thralldom to our consciences from ignorance, extreme poverty, and dependence; in short, from civil and political…

— John Adams

My best wishes, in the joys, and festivities, and the solemn services of that day on which will be completed the fiftieth…

— John Adams

We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands: we have a check upon two branches of the legislature, as…

— John Adams

Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 'this would be the…

— John Adams

Elections, especially of representatives and counselors, should be annual, there not being in the whole circle of the sciences a maxim more…

— 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

When I was young, and addicted to reading, I had heard about dancing on the points of metaphysical needles; but, by mixing…

— John Adams

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the…

— John Adams