John Adams Quotes on People (12 Quotes)

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

The deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a place, is without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen.

Statesmen...may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.... The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.

I have lived long enough, and had experience enough of the conduct of governments and people, nations and courts, to be convinced that gratitude, friendship, unsuspecting confidence, and all the amiable passions in human nature, are the most dangerou

The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.

The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of th

That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult

There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state.

As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it, in reason, morality, and the natural fitness of things.

There is but one element of government, and that is THE PEOPLE. From this element spring all governments. 'For a nation to be free, it is only necessary that she wills it.' For a nation to be slave, it is only necessary that she wills it.