6th President of the United States (1767-1848)
Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers, and of love for our posterity. They form the connecting links between the selfish and the social passions. By the fundamental principle of Christianity, the happiness of the individual is Later-woven, by innumerable and imperceptible ties, with that of his contemporaries: by the power of filial reverence and parental affection, individual existence is extended beyond the limits of individual life, and the happiness of every age is chained in mutual dependence upon that of every other.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
oration at Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1802
This is the last of Earth! I am content.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
last words, Feb. 21, 1848
The origin of the political relations between the United States and France is coeval with the first years of our independence. The memory of it is interwoven with that of our arduous struggle for national existence. Weakened as it has occasionally been since that time, it can by us never be forgotten, and we should hail with exultation the moment which should indicate a recollection equally friendly in spirit on the part of France.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Third Annual Message, Dec. 4, 1827
Religious discord has lost her sting; the cumbrous weapons of theological warfare are antiquated: the field of politics supplies the alchymists of our times with materials of more fatal explosion, and the butchers of mankind no longer travel to another world for instruments of cruelty and destruction.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
oration at Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1802
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.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
The Quincy Patriot, Sep. 25, 1841
The great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing nation are so linked in union together that no permanent cause of prosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influence to the others. All these interests are alike under the protecting power of the legislative authority, and the duties of the representative bodies are to conciliate them in harmony together.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Fourth Annual Message, Dec. 2, 1828
So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the debts and defraying the expenses of the community, its operation should be adapted as much as possible to suit the burden with equal hand upon all in proportion with their ability of bearing it without oppression.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Fourth Annual Message, Dec. 2, 1828
There still remains one effort of magnanimity, one sacrifice of prejudice and passion, to be made by the individuals throughout the nation who have heretofore followed the standards of political party. It is that of discarding every remnant of rancor against each other, of embracing as countrymen and friends, and of yielding to talents and virtue alone that confidence which in times of contention for principle was bestowed only upon those who bore the badge of party communion.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1825
The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
journal, Dec. 11, 1838
Religion, charity, pure benevolence, and morals, mingled up with superstitious rites and ferocious cruelty, form in their combination institutions the most powerful and the most pernicious that have ever afflicted mankind.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
journal, Nov. 22, 1831
Death fixes forever the relation existing between the departed spirit and the survivors upon earth.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
journal, Jul. 24, 1831
The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Inaugural Address, Mar. 4, 1825
My wants are many, and, if told, would muster many a score; and were each wish a mint of gold, I still would want for more.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
The Quincy Patriot, Sep. 25, 1841
In the American hemisphere the cause of freedom and independence has continued to prevail, and if signalized by none of those splendid triumphs which had crowned with glory some of the preceding years it has only been from the banishment of all external force against which the struggle had been maintained. The shout of victory has been superseded by the expulsion of the enemy over whom it could have been achieved.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Third Annual Message, Dec. 4, 1827
I told him that I thought it was law logic -- an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in Courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
comment to John Marshall, Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848
The imagination of a eunuch dwells more and longer upon the material of love than that of man or woman ... supplying, so far as he can, by speculation, the place of pleasures he can no longer enjoy.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
journal, Apr. 4, 1831
To preserve, to improve, and to perpetuate the sources and to direct in their most effective channels the streams which contribute to the public weal is the purpose for which Government was instituted.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
Third Annual Message, Dec. 4, 1827