John Quincy Adams

Westward the star of empire takes its way.

— John Quincy Adams

The freedom of the press should be inviolate.

— John Quincy Adams

We know the redemption must come.

— John Quincy Adams

“My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.”

— John Quincy Adams

Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.

— John Quincy Adams

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

— John Quincy Adams

Life is a problem; mortal man was made to solve the solemn problem right or wrong.

— John Quincy Adams

Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations.

— John Quincy Adams

America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

— John Quincy Adams

A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering.

— John Quincy Adams

May our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.

— John Quincy Adams

Democracy, pure democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of human rights. It is founded on the natural equality…

— John Quincy Adams

Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of…

— John Quincy Adams

According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.

— John Quincy Adams

Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care…

— John Quincy Adams

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good…

— John Quincy Adams

The mere title of lawyer is sufficient to deprive a man of the public confidence. ... The most innocent and irreproachable life…

— John Quincy Adams

The great problem of legislation is, so to organize the civil government of a community ... that in the operation of human…

— John Quincy Adams

All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate…

— John Quincy Adams

Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, and of course presupposes the existence of…

— John Quincy Adams

The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes…

— John Quincy Adams

The American continents, by the free and independent condition that they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as…

— John Quincy Adams

The natural state of mankind ... and I know that this is a controversial idea... is freedom... And the proof is the…

— John Quincy Adams

The barbarian chieftain, who defended his country against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of Britain, and stimulating his followers…

— John Quincy Adams

Of all persecuted sects, the Baptists stand forth as most prominent, simply and only because they aim at a more complete and…

— John Quincy Adams

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.…

— John Quincy Adams

The attainment of knowledge is the high and exclusive attribute of man, among the numberless myriads of animated beings, inhabitants of the…

— John Quincy Adams

To believe that everyone is honest is folly, but to believe that no one is honest is worse.

— John Quincy Adams

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

— John Quincy Adams

We understand now, we've been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were.

— John Quincy Adams

“To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so, is something worse.”

— John Quincy Adams

The Law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code.

— John Quincy Adams

No book in the world deserves to be so unceasingly studied, and so profoundly meditated upon as the Bible.

— John Quincy Adams

The more you meditate on the laws of Moses, the more striking and brighter does their wisdom appear.

— John Quincy Adams

The art of making love, muffled up in furs, in the open air, with the thermometer at Zero, is a Yankee invention.

— John Quincy Adams

From the experience of the past we derive instructive lessons for the future.

— John Quincy Adams

Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.

— John Quincy Adams

The gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.

— John Quincy Adams

The law is an artificial human construct, quite arbitrary, and of absolutely no use anywhere else but in a court of law!

— John Quincy Adams

I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year.

— John Quincy Adams