John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

In order to preserve the dominion of our own passions, it behooves us to be constantly and strictly on our guard against the influence and infection of the passions of others.

Guarding - Ownership - Passion

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

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

Christianity - Effectiveness - Vices

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

Gratitude, warm, sincere, intense, when it takes possession of the bosom, fills the soul to overflowing and scarce leaves room for any other sentiment or thought.

Taking - Thoughts - Warmth

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

Is not the brand of 'double-dealer' stamped on the forehead of every democratic slaveholder? Are not fraud and hypocrisy the religion of the man who calls himself a democrat, and hold his fellow-man in bondage?

Calling - Democracy

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

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

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union. A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would now be certainly necessary. The Union might then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation.

Principle

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising. It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day. It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.

Godliness - Mornings - President

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.

Enjoying

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

Belief - Honesty - Man - Patriotism

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

We know the redemption must come. The time and the manner of its coming we know not: It may come in peace, or it may come in blood; but whether in peace or in blood, LET IT COME.

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made 'bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God' (Isaiah 52:10).

Belief - Christianity - Earth - End - Holiness - Making - Prospect

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away... the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances His disciples in asserting that He was God.

Positive - Whole

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

Our political way of life is by the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government.

Boundaries - Human - Man - Morals - Politics

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

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

Countries - President - Success

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

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

Human - Religion

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their G-d!

Countries - President

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the fields and vallies, which a beneficent God has formed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness?

Quest

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

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

Courting - Human

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men.

Blessing - Conditioning - Creating - Earth - End - Man - Morals - Politics

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

The freedom of the press should be inviolate.

Pressure

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

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

Monster - Wellness

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

I want the seals of power and place, the ensigns of command, charged by the people's unbought grace, to rule my native land. Nor crown, nor scepter would I ask but from my country's will, by day, by night, to ply the task her cup of bliss to fill.

Commanding - Countries - Wants

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself, and enlarges the sphere of existence.

Meaning

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

The political system of the United States is essentially extra-European. To stand in firm and cautious independence of all entanglement in the European system has been a cardinal point of their policy under every administration of their government from the peace of 1783 to this day...Every year's experience rivets it more deeply in the principles and opinions of the nation.

Jewish - Politics - Principle - State - Unions

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

The American continents, by the free and independent condition that they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation byany European powers? In the wars of the Europeanpowers inmattersrelating to ourselves, we have never taken any part; nor does it comport with our policy to do so.

Conditioning - Independence - Taking

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis.

Performance - Whole

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

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

Earth - Spirits - Survival

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

This mode of electioneering suited neither my taste nor my principles. I thought it equally unsuitable to my personal character and to the station in which I am placed.

President - Principle

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.

History - Morals - Revelation

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

There is nothing so deep and nothing so shallow which political enmity will not turn to account.

Accounting - Politics - President

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service; and knowing that "except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain," with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit with humble but fearless confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.

Countries - Favor - Fearlessness - Humility - Knowledge - Vanity

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John Quincy Adams

Former President of the United States

Whether to the nation or to the state, no service can be or ever will be rendered by a more able or a more faithful public servant.

Ability - Faithfulness - State

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