Adams Quotes & Sayings

Christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history. — Ralph Adams Cram

You can only judge anything that happened in the times, in the times that that happened. — Gerry Adams

It is folly to anticipate evils, and madness to create imaginary ones. — John Adams

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist. — Henry Adams

I was busier than a beaver in a coffee lake. — Scott Adams

I'm a four-down guy. I can rush the passer and stop the run. I know I can be a difference-maker. — Gaines Adams

A photograph is usually looked at- seldom looked into. — Ansel Adams

Presumably he would know what the Question to the Ultimate Answer is. It's always bothered me that we never found out." "Think of a number," said the computer, "any number. — Douglas Adams

Though, in debating with regard to theories, it be lawful to say whether this or that is consistent with the Divine attributes, yet, when we find that God has actually done any thing, all question about its justice, wisdom, and benevolence, is forever out of place. — Nehemiah Adams

For Jefferson, there was one step crucial to creating a genuine natural aristocracy. The poor and rich had to have equal access to a good education. That's why, despite being soemthing of a liberatarian, he repeatedly proposed that the state pay for universal primary education as well as fund education at later stages. He was met with opposition from many quarters, mostly those wary of big government or highter taxes. Yet interestingly, one of this most ardent supporters was an old friend and political opponent, the conservative John Adams. "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it," Adams wrote. "There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people. — Fareed Zakaria

Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed the former is part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness. — John Adams

Mixture of pleasure and pain," he muttered. "Always does the trick. — Douglas Adams

There can be no such things as an Irish nationalist accepting the loyalist veto and partition. You cannot claim to be an Irish nationalist if you consent to an internal six county settlement and if you are willing to negotiate the state of Irish society with a foreign government. — Gerry Adams

We men should be ashamed of ourselves. I think 85 percent of men are dangerous to women. We need to change to a values system nested in compassion and generosity, and women have carried that torch throughout history. — Patch Adams

The moral is to make all one can out of life and live up to one's fingers' ends. — Marian Hooper Adams

Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors. — John Adams

I don't believe there's a horse in your bathroom. — Douglas Adams

But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma ... and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes. — John Adams

You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little," he had told Caroline, in response to her quandary over the riddles of life. "The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. . . . Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough. . . . So questions and so answers your affectionate grandfather." Adams — David McCullough

For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?" — Ryan Adams

Millions of dollars' worth of advertising shows such little respect for the reader's intelligence that it amounts almost to outright insult. — James Randolph Adams

I don't read the news to find truth, as that would be a foolish waste of time. I read the news to broaden my exposure to new topics and patterns that make my brain more efficient in general and to enjoy myself, because learning interesting things increases my energy and makes me feel optimistic. Don't think of the news as information. Think of it as a source of energy. — Scott Adams

If free will exists, why do the tallest candidates with the best hair usually win elections ? — Scott Adams

I know how to work a problem. Frustration is the enemy. It makes you do stupid things. So you don't let it beat you. Instead you search for landmarks, look for signs. The task takes every single bit of me I have left. It's good, this task, because it keeps my mind focused. — Carolyn Lee Adams

Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both. We are destined to be a barrier against the returns of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a Colossus shall we be when the Southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it secure as a ralliance for the reason & freedom of the globe! I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. So good night. I will dream on, always fancying that Mrs Adams and yourself are by my side marking the progress and the obliquities of ages and countries. — Thomas Jefferson

To illustrate the vain conceit that the universe must be somehow pre-ordained for us, because we are so well-suited to live in it, he [Douglas Adams] mimed a wonderfully funny imitation of a puddle of water, fitting itself snugly into a depression in the ground, the depression uncannily being exactly the same shape as the puddle. — Richard Dawkins

They want to be natural, the anti-social little beasts. They just don't realize that everyone's good depends on everyone's cooperation. — Richard Adams

Don't start on the tortured poet crap, okay? You have no idea what it's like to deal with you guys. You just walk away when it suits you. You have all these soulful songs, you have these grandiose feelings, angst and pain. You cry and I feel sorry for you. I want to cradle you and care for you, do anything to help put the broken pieces back together. But then, guess what? When it's over, when it all falls apart, I'm broken, too. You're perfectly happy being in pieces, but I'm not. I'm not happy being broken. — Sayer Adams

Our notion of an optimist is a man who knowing that each year was worse than the preceding, thinks next year will be better. And a pessimist is a man who knows the next year can't be worse than the last one. — Franklin P. Adams

I want to feel passion, I want to feel pain. I want to weep at the sound of your name. Come make me laugh, come make me cry ... just make me feel alive. — Joey Lauren Adams

It's not so much an afterlife' Said Arthur, 'more a sort of apres vie — Douglas Adams

If the fundamental principles in the Declaration of Independence, as self-evident truths, are real truths, the existence of slavery, in any form, is a wrong. — John Quincy Adams

To many people holidays are not voyages of discovery, but a ritual of reassurance. — Phillip Adams

From the day of the Declaration ... they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct. — John Quincy Adams

There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again. — Douglas Adams

I shall sit alone in a darkened room, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything but a little grey old head, and in that little grey old head a peculiar vision of hideous blue and gold dangling things flashing in the light, and the smell of sweat, cat food and death. — Douglas Adams

What was she to think? Oh, teasing, teasing man! It would be so much easier if he could simply tell her what he meant by all his confusing actions. And so she had another shock: Jane Bennet was irritated with Mr. Bingley. — Elizabeth Adams

There's no way the future's over for Martin Keown, Tony Adams or David Seaman. — Alan Shearer

A lake that is noisy cannot reflect anything — Robert Adams

Dilbert: It took weeks but I've calculated a new theory about the origin of the universe. According to my calculations it didn't start with a "Big Bang" at all-it was more of "Phhbwt" sound. You may be wondering about the practical applications of the "Little Phhbwt" theory. Dogbert: I was wondering when you'll go away. — Scott Adams

There is another theory that states: This has already happened ... — Douglas Adams

Dirk was unused to making quite such a miniscule impact on anybody. He checked to be sure that he did have his huge leather coat and his absurd red hat on and that he was properly and dramatically silhouetted by the light on the doorway.
He felt momentarily deflated and said, "Er ... " by was of self-introduction, but it didn't get the boy's attention. He didn't like this. The kid was deliberately and maliciously watching television at him. — Douglas Adams

All art is the expression of one and the same thing- the relation of the spirit of man to the spirit of other men and to the world. — Ansel Adams

She had what it took: great hair, a profound understanding of strategic lip gloss, the intelligence to understand the world and a tiny secret interior deadness which meant she didn't care. — Douglas Adams

Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it. — John Adams

Marvin the Paranoid Android sat slumped, ignoring all and ignored by all, in a private and rather unpleasant world of his own. — Douglas Adams

There is a moment in every dawn when light floats, there is the possibility of magic. Creation holds its breath. — Douglas Adams

You go on, I presume, with your latin Exercises: and I wish to hear of your beginning upon Sallust who is one of the most polished and perfect of the Roman Historians, every Period of whom, and I had almost said every Syllable and every Letter is worth Studying.
In Company with Sallust, Cicero, Tacitus and Livy, you will learn Wisdom and Virtue. You will see them represented, with all the Charms which Language and Imagination can exhibit, and Vice and Folly painted in all their Deformity and Horror.
You will ever remember that all the End of study is to make you a good Man and a useful Citizen. - This will ever be the Sum total of the Advice of your affectionate Father,
John Adams — John Adams

The Universe is an unsettlingly big place, a fact which for the sake of a quiet life most people tend to ignore. Many would happily move to somewhere rather smaller of their own devising, and this is what most beings in fact do. — Douglas Adams

Guys willing to hold your dick are a dime a dozen; save your hearts for the one who wants to hold your hand. — Diane Adams

No man, however strong, can serve ten years as schoolmaster, priest, or Senator, and remain fit for anything else. — Henry Adams

We cannot make events. Our business is wisely to improve them. — Samuel Adams

In the center lay the exploded carcass of a lonely sperm whale that hadn't lived long enough to be disappointed with its lot. — Douglas Adams

She had waited so long for this. For this intimacy to be whole, complete, to unquestionably mean love. — Noelle Adams

Church membership was so important that Paul and Silas baptized the Philippian jailer into the membership of Christ's church at midnight with Paul's back still bloody from a beating! He did not even wait till morning! Identification with Christ's church is important; without it, one must be treated 'as a heathen and publican.' — Jay Adams

Management is nature's way of removing idiots from the productive flow. — Scott Adams

The skies and land are so enormous, and the detail so precise and exquisite that wherever you are you are isolated in a glowing world between the macro and the micro. — Ansel Adams

Rather than literally burning the midnight oil, which he judged to be unhealthy, John Adams advised his son to make the most of college by developing an inquisitive outlook that would prompt him to get to know the most exceptional scholars and question them closely. Ask them about their tutors, manner of teaching. Observe what books lie on their tables. Fall into questions of literature, science, or what you will. — David McCullough

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

I'd been round the world a hundred times and had started to forget where I'd been. I knew I'd been there: it said it on the tour map. I could remember the name of the city but I couldn't remember what it was like - it was a massive blur. — Bryan Adams

Henry James proposed asking of art three modest and appropriate questions: What is the artist trying to do? Does he do it? Was it worth doing? — Robert Adams

Those of us who are working with these strange substances trying to find the best way of using them, both in the treatment of illnesses and for the exploration of the human mind, need men like Bishop to come forward and explain that our purposes are serious and good, to emphasize that this is not a diversion, an amusement or an attempt to relieve people of their spare cash.

-Robert Dickins — Cameron Adams

I will insist the Hebrews have [contributed] more to civilize men than any other nation. If I was an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations ... They are the most glorious nation that ever inhabited this Earth. The Romans and their empire were but a bubble in comparison to the Jews. They have given religion to three-quarters of the globe and have influenced the affairs of mankind more and more happily than any other nation, ancient or modern. — John Adams

An island, on the other hand, is small. There are fewer species, and the competition for survival has never reached anything like the pitch that it does on the mainland. Species are only as tough as they need to be, life is much quieter and more settled [..] So you can imagine what happens when a mainland species gets introduced to an island. It would be like introducing Al Capone, Genghis Khan and Rupert Murdoch into the Isle of Wight - the locals wouldn't stand a chance. — Douglas Adams

Ford was humming something. it was just one note repeated at intervals. He was hoping that somebody would ask him what he was humming, but nobody did. if anybody had asked him he would have said he was humming the first line of a Noel Coward song called "Mad About the Boy" over and over again. it would then have been pointed out to him that he was only singing one note, to which he would have replied that for reasons that he hoped would be apparent, he was omitting the "About the Boy" bit. he was annoyed that nobody asked. — Douglas Adams

Elections to office, which are the great objects of ambition, I look at with terror! — John Adams

Anyone who can go through Hyde Park on a summer's evening and not feel moved by it is probably going through in an ambulance with the sheet pulled over their face. — Douglas Adams

You can change only what people know, not what they do. — Scott Adams

I'm a big girl. I can make my own decisions about my dance partners."
He raised his arms in defense. "All I'm saying is that the guy let you trip and fall. I worry about you dancing in someone else's arms. — Ada Adams

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody. — Franklin P. Adams

Time doesn't necessarily happen in chronological order. — Douglas Adams

Many races believe that it was created by some sort of god, though the Jatravartid people of Viltvodle VI believe that the entire Universe was in fact sneezed out of the nose of a being called the Great Green Arkleseizure. — Douglas Adams

And what voluntary organizations exist to help you rehabilitate afterward. — Douglas Adams

We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption. — John Adams

Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent, said the old man, sternly. — Douglas Adams

The natural tenderness and delicacy of our constitution, added to the many dangers we are subject to from your sex, renders it almost impossible for a single lady to travel without injury to her character. And those who have a protector in a husband have, generally speaking, obstacles to prevent their roving. — Abigail Adams

plaintively. Ford — Douglas Adams

And so the problem remained; — Douglas Adams

But now he felt as if the whole world were tipping backwards over his head, and this, he couldn't help feeling, was a very worrying thing for the world to do. — Douglas Adams

In the one branch he most needed — Henry Adams

Believe it or not, I've never been the most popular person at any party." She tried for a wry smile and almost managed it.

He shook his head. "That's only because you hide from people. You don't let them get to know you. Claire, if you let them see who you really are, every person in that room would adore you. — Noelle Adams

In most cases, however, the terror was extremely short-lived, as was the person experiencing the terror. — Douglas Adams

Scott Adams is not only a world-famous cartoonist, he's also a world-class failure. And he's the first to admit it. In his new book, 'How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big,' the Dilbert creator explains how failure can lead to success if you develop the right skills to make the most of your mistakes. — Mark Frauenfelder

One of the problems of taking things apart and seeing how they work - supposing you're trying to find out how a cat works
you take that cat apart to see how it works, what you've got in your hands is a non-working cat. The cat wasn't a sort of clunky mechanism that was susceptible to our available tools of analysis. — Douglas Adams

Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that, were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech and writing is evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed-up personality. — Douglas Adams

Listen little Songkeeper, the voice whispered, and I will sing you a Song. — Gillian Bronte Adams

But naturally my shoulder, sir,' mooed the animal contentedly, 'nobody else's is mine to offer. — Douglas Adams

Human beings say, "It never rains but it pours." This is not very apt, for it frequently does rain without pouring. The rabbits' proverb is better expressed. They say, "One cloud feels lonely": and indeed it is true that the sky will soon be overcast. — Richard Adams

Accident counts for as much in companionship as in marriage. — Henry Adams

Weapons and technology may help win wars, but it is only ideas that have the power to truly change the world. — Simon Adams

You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen. — Douglas Adams

It's just that it's a good idea not to let him have your phone number unless you possess an industrial-grade answering machine." "What? Why's that?" "Well, he's one of those people who can only think when he's talking. When he has ideas, he has to talk them out to whoever will listen. Or, if the people themselves are not available, which is increasingly the case, their answering machines will do just as well. He just phones them up and talks at them. He has one secretary whose sole job is to collect tapes from people he might have phoned, transcribe them, sort them and give him the edited text the next day in a blue folder. — Douglas Adams

There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound. — Douglas Adams

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

Laplace would have found it child's-play to fix a ratio of progression in mathematical science between Descartes, Leibnitz, Newton and himself — Henry Adams

I've been talking about how electronic books will come, and how important they will be, and all of a sudden Stephen King publishes one. I feel a complete idiot, as it should have been me. — Douglas Adams

His face is livid, gaunt his whole body, his breath is green with gall; his tongue drips poison. — John Quincy Adams

He turned it and turned it. They could see quite clearly in the fine tracery of its etchwork the words So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish. — Douglas Adams

Alltami (n.)
The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps. — Douglas Adams

The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men. — John Adams