When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
More Quotes from John Adams:
The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God. It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind.John Adams
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.
John Adams
'A government of laws and not of men.' Adams published articles in 1774 in the Boston, Massachusetts, Gazette using the pseudonym 'Novanglus.' In this paper he credited James Harrington with expressing the idea this way. Harrington described government as 'the empire of laws and not of men' in his 1656 work, The Commonwealth of Oceana, p. 35 (1771). The phrase gained wider currency when Adams used it in the Massachusetts Constitution, Bill of Rights, article 30 (1780). Works, vol. 4, p. 230.
John Adams
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved-the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced.
John Adams
It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there can be property in man
John Adams
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Based on Topics: Laughter Quotes, Liberty & Freedom Quotes, Speaking Quotes, Writing QuotesAges when custom is unsettled are necessarily ages of prophecy. The moralist cannot teach what is revealed; he must reveal what can be taught. He has to seek insight rather than to preach.
Walter Lippmann
Rather, I believe that it is very good, if, with the aid of his songs, we can be reminded, among other things, of the social conditions under which Schubert had to work.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
A gentle heart is tied with an easy thread.
George Herbert