John Adams Quotes on Man (11 Quotes)

'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.

My fixed principle never to be the tool of any man, nor the partisan of any nation, would forever exclude me from the smiles and favors or courts

It is wrong to admit into the Constitution the idea that there can be property in man

The universal object and idol of men of letters is reputation

Education makes a greater difference between man and man than nature has made between man and brute.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

A government of laws, and not of men.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last 30 years than Tom Paine.

Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated in America and a greater perhaps never was, nor will be, decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that those United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.

My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.