John Quincy Quotes & Sayings

The firmest security of peace is the preparation during peace of the defenses of war. — John Quincy Adams

Athenaeum, or Jonathan Edwards at thirteen entering Yale College, and while yet of a tender age shining in the horizon of American literature; while the same age finds H. W. Longfellow writing for the Portland Gazette. At fourteen John Quincy Adams was private secretary to Francis H. Dana, American Minister to Russia; at fifteen Benjamin Franklin was writing for the New England Courant, and at an early age became a noted journalist. Benjamin West at sixteen had painted "The Death of Socrates," at seventeen George Bancroft had won a degree in history, Washington Irving had gained — Charles Stewart Given

No sermon I have heard or read touched my heart with half the force of this puppet show. John Quincy Adams — Paul C. Nagel

American secretaries of state have typically been more buttoned up than bon vivant, but John Quincy Adams's diplomatic successes - bigger than anything presidential or legislative that he achieved - still surprise a student of his personality. — Thomas Mallon

I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. — John Quincy Adams

But we also know that the very founders that wrote those documents worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States ... I think it is high time that we recognize the contribution of our forbearers who worked tirelessly - men like John Quincy Adams, who would not rest until slavery was extinguished in the country. — Michele Bachmann

The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not. — John Quincy Adams

It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that [people] are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future. — John Quincy Adams

Warren had a most unusual household. A recent widower with four children between the ages of two and eight, he was not only a leading patriot but also had one of the busiest medical practices in Boston. He had two apprentices living with him on Hanover Street, and he sometimes saw as many as twenty patients a day. His practice ran the gamut, from little boys with broken bones, like John Quincy Adams, to prostitutes on aptly named Damnation Alley, — Nathaniel Philbrick

All that I am my mother made me. - John Quincy Adams. Children and mothers never truly part ... — Charlotte Gray

We understand now, we've been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding that who we are is who we were. — John Quincy Adams

The mere title of lawyer is sufficient to deprive a man of the public confidence ... The most innocent and irreproachable life cannot guard a lawyer against the hatred of his fellow citizens. — John Quincy Adams

There is nothing so deep and nothing so shallow which political enmity will not turn to account. — John Quincy Adams

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

John Quincy Adams ranks with Jimmy Carter on the roster of ex-presidential redemption. Instead of completing a biography of his father, he let himself be elected to the House, where he spent nine terms in Whiggish opposition to the Democrats, supporting a national bank and a protective tariff and internal improvements. — Thomas Mallon

The harmony of the nation is promoted and the whole Union is knit together by the sentiments of mutual respect, the habits of social intercourse, and the ties of personal friendship formed between the representatives of its several parts in the performance of their service at this metropolis. — John Quincy Adams

We know the redemption must come. — John Quincy Adams

Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God. — John Quincy Adams

Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. — John Quincy Adams

A wiser and more useful philosophy, however, directs us to consider man according to the nature in which he was formed; subject to infirmities, which no wisdom can remedy; to weaknesses, which no institution can strengthen; to vices, which no legislation can correct. Hence, — John Quincy Adams

What is the right of the huntsman to the forest of a thousand miles over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the fields and vallies, which a beneficent God has formed to teem with the life of innumerable multitudes, be condemned to everlasting barrenness? — John Quincy Adams

In the past, dictionaries had been less scientific, and definitions often crudely brief. One example historians like to cite is the definition of 'mucus' in John Kersey's Dictionarium Anglo-Britannicum (1708) as 'snot or snivel'. Johnson, by contrast, defers to the authority of the medic John Quincy, and defines 'mucus' as 'that which flows from the papillary processes through the os cribriforme into the nostrils'. Kersey exemplifies the simplicity of the older dictionaries. He defines 'coffin' as 'a case for a dead body', 'penis' as 'a man's yard', 'eye' as 'the wonderful instrument of sight', — Henry Hitchings

The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lie dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman ... ' - Abigail Adams to her son John Quincy Adams, p. 379 — Irving Stone

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. — John Quincy Adams

The inconsistency of the institution of domestic slavery with the principles of the Declaration of Independence was seen and lamented ... no insincerity or hypocrisy can be fairly laid to their charge. Never from their lips was heard one syllable of attempt to justify the institution of slavery. They universally considered it as a reproach fastened upon them by the unnatural step-mother country and they saw that before the principles of the Declaration of Independence slavery, in common with every other mode of oppression, was destined sooner or later to be banished from the earth. — John Quincy Adams

The founders of your race are not handed down to you, like the fathers of the Roman people, as the sucklings of a wolf. You are not descended from a nauseous compound of fanaticism and sensuality, whose only argument was the sword, and whose only paradise was a brothel. No Gothic scourge of God, no Vandal pest of nations, no fabled fugitive from the flames of Troy, no bastard Norman tyrant, appears among the list of worthies who first landed on the rock, which your veneration has preserved as a lasting monument of their achievement. The — John Quincy Adams

When (an advocate) is not thoroughly acquainted with the real strength and weakness of his cause, he knows not where to choose the most impressive argument. When the mark is shrouded in obscurity, the only substitute for accuracy in the aim is in the multitude of the shafts. — John Quincy Adams

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

The Law given from Sinai [The Ten Commandments] was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code. — John Quincy Adams

The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the Legislator and Savior of the world. — John Quincy Adams

We are redeemed one man at a time. There is no family pass ticket or park hopping pass to life. One ticket - one at a time. Man doesn't vanquish hatred or bigotry. The target keeps moving. From the blacks to the Irish; atheists to Christians. But as always there are a few leaders: Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, Booker T Washington, Ghandi and Martin Luther King. They know that the march toward freedom never ends, man must be ever vigilant and pray less with his lips and more with his legs. — Glenn Beck

However tiresome to others, the most indefatigable orator is never tedious to himself. The sound of his own voice never loses its harmony to his own ear; and among the delusions, which self-love is ever assiduous in attempting to pass upon virtue, he fancies himself to be sounding the sweetest tones — John Quincy Adams

Baptists have always strenuously contended for the acknowledgment of this principle, and have labored to propagate it. Nowhere, on the page of history, can an instance be found of Baptists depriving others of their religious liberties, or aiming to do so; but, wherever they ave found, even in tlie darkest ages of intolerance and persecution, they appear to be far in advance of those who surround them, on this important subject. This is simply owing to their adherence to the Gospel of Christ in its purity. Here religious liberty is taught in its fullest extent; and it was only when the Christian church departed from God's Word, that she sought to crush the rights of conscience; and only when she fully returns to it again, will she cease to cherish a desire to do so. — John Quincy Adams

Whether to the nation or to the state, no service can be or ever will be rendered by a more able or a more faithful public servant. — John Quincy Adams

But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow ... Like a Coach and six - the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace. — John Quincy Adams

I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once ever year ... My custom is, to read four to five chapters every morning immediately after rising from my bed. I employs about an hour of my time ... — John Quincy Adams

Of all persecuted sects, the Baptists stand forth as most prominent, simply and only because they aim at a more complete and thorough reform than any others ever attempted. They teach that Christ's kingdom is not of this world; that the church is not a national, political, or provincial establishment; but a congregation of holy men, separated from the world by the receiving of the Holy Spirit. — John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams strove to escape commonplace thoughts. — Paul C. Nagel

John Quincy Adams, denying his sons permission to come home for college holidays for under-performance: "I would feel nothing but sorrow and shame at your presence. — Paul C. Nagel

It is among the evils of slavery that it taints the very sources of moral principle. It establishes false estimates of virtue and vice: for what can be more false and heartless than this doctrine which makes the first and holiest rights of humanity to depend upon the color of the skin? — John Quincy Adams

Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom. — John Quincy Adams

The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes ... of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws. — John Quincy Adams

It is essential..that you should form and adopt certain rules or principles, for the government of your own conduct and temper. Unless you have such rules and principles, there will be numberless occasions on which you will have no guide for your government but your passions..It is in the Bible, you must learn them, and from the Bible how to practice them. — John Quincy Adams

My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ and I cannot cavil or quibble away ... the whole tenor of His conduct by which He sometimes positively asserted and at others countenances His disciples in asserting that He was God. — John Quincy Adams

I would much rather be found guilty of making a serious mistake in judgment, than to be accused of being even a little bit insincere. — John Quincy Adams

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone. — John Quincy Adams

Rather than ennobling the public mind and cementing the social fabric, applied science speedily became the chief weapon of a gross individualism, which was anathema to the frugal and righteous (John Quincy) Adams, the source of enormous fortunes divorced from duty, the instrument of unscrupulous ambition and rapacious materialism. Presently, it came to scar the very of the country which Adams loved, a disfiguring process uninterrupted since his day. — Russell Kirk

The great object of the institution of civil government is the improvement of those who are parties to the social compact. — John Quincy Adams

Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations. — John Quincy Adams

Your father's zeal for books will be one of the last desires which will quit him, Abigail observed to John Quincy — David McCullough

A stranger would think that the people of the United States had no other occupation than electioneering. — John Quincy Adams

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. — John Quincy Adams

I knew my mother was - well, her ancestry dated back to John Quincy Adams, so she was totally not Latina. She was definitely whatever you call it - white bread, shall we say? — Raquel Welch

Ambition distorts even memory itself. John Quincy Adams — Paul C. Nagel

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. — John Quincy Adams

The natural state of mankind ... and I know that this is a controversial idea ... is freedom ... And the proof is the lengths to which a man, woman, or child will go to regain it once lost. He will break loose his chains. He will decimate his enemies. He will try and try and try again, against all odds, against all prejudices. — John Quincy Adams

My countenance in my old-age does injustice to my heart. John Quincy Adams — Paul C. Nagel

May our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right. — John Quincy Adams

Human life, from the cradle to the grave, is a school. At every period of his existence man wants a teacher. His pilgrimage upon earth is but a term of childhood, in which he is to be educated for the manhood of a brighter world. As the child must be educated for manhood upon earth, so the man must be educated upon earth, for heaven; and finally that where the foundation is not laid in time, the superstructure can not rise for eternity. — John Quincy Adams

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality. — John Quincy Adams

Rather than pound or a national mind that he believed had been closed by his critics, John Quincy Adams decided to seek a place in the is the esteem of future generations. — Paul C. Nagel

Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls. — John Quincy Adams

Our religion was the religion of a Book. Man must be educated on Earth for Heaven. John Quincy Adams — Paul C. Nagel

The gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster. — John Quincy Adams

Abraham Lincoln wasn't much of a dancer. "Miss Todd, I should like to dance with you in the worst way," he told his future wife. Miss Todd later said to a friend, "He certainly did."

"John Quincy Adams was a first-rate swimmer. Once when he was skinny-dipping in the Potomac River, a women reporter snatched his clothes and sat on them until he gave her an interview."

"(Andrew Johnson couldn't read until he was fourteen! He didn't learn to write until after he was married!) — Judith St. George

We know the redemption must come. The time and the manner of its coming we know not: It may come in peace, or it may come in blood; but whether in peace or in blood, LET IT COME. — John Quincy Adams

People who run for office and are defeated aren't rejected in the usual sense of the word. They're just defeated because they couldn't get enough votes that one time. It doesn't mean the public despises them. It's a preference for somebody else for that particular office at that particular moment, that's all. The examples I've given have shown that when those men were passed up, they were still highly thought of and were still great men. There were a good many like that. You take the Adams family. After John Quincy Adams passed on, there were Adams descendants in Lincoln's cabinet. They wrote important histories and things of that kind. Even in the states, some good men are governors who have been defeated previously in elections, even in previous tries for governor. If they don't become pessimists and decide to lay down and take it, if they get up and start over again, why, they don't have any trouble. — Harry Truman

Westward the star of empire takes its way. — John Quincy Adams

The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in [Great Britain] than in any other place that I ever saw. — John Quincy Adams

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

Do you know what causes low voter turnout in America? It's the result of having the fate of our nation at stake. This began with the bitter presidential election of 1828, which pitted the education, cultivation, and puritan constraint of John Quincy Adams against the yahoo populism of Andrew Jackson, thereby deciding permanently whether America would become a shining city upon a hill or an overlighted strip mall along a highway. — Ozzy Osbourne

The Sermon on the Mount commands me to lay up for myself treasures, not upon earth, but in Heaven. My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ. — John Quincy Adams

The life-changing encounters that John Quincy Adams made as an adolescent on his own in Stockholm began with a friendship he struck up at a bookstore. — Paul C. Nagel

Our Constitution rests on the good sense and the respect of the American people. — John Quincy Adams

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

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

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

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

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

And may that Being who is supreme over all, the Patron of order, the Fountain of justice, and the Protector, in all ages of the world, of virtuous liberty, continue His blessing upon this nation and its government, and give it all possible success and duration, consistent with the ends of His providence. — John Quincy Adams

For thirty-six of the forty years between 1800 and 1840, either Jefferson or a self-described adherent of his served as president of the United States: James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, and Martin Van Buren.32 (John Quincy Adams, a one-term president, was the single exception.) — Jon Meacham

Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel. — John Quincy Adams

Who but shall learn that freedom is the prize Man still is bound to rescue or maintain; That nature's God commands the slave to rise, And on the oppressor's head to break the chain. Roll, years of promise, rapidly roll round, Till not a slave shall on this earth by found. — John Quincy Adams

While dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not be unmindful that liberty is power; that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth, and that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of himself and his fellow men. — John Quincy Adams

If there have been those who doubted whether a confederated representative democracy were a government competent to the wise and orderly management of the common concerns of a mighty nation, those doubts have been dispelled. — John Quincy Adams

The young John Quincy Adams begins it lifelong habit of keeping a journal with reluctance that he might one day have to read it. He hopes, though, that the flaws in his earlier entries will be balanced by the progress he is able to see. — Paul C. Nagel

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 carry too much of the week into the Sabbath , and too little of the Sabbath into the week. John Quincy Adams — Paul C. Nagel

The political system of the United States is essentially extra-European. To stand in firm and cautious independence of all entanglement in the European system has been a cardinal point of their policy under every administration of their government from the peace of 1783 to this day ... Every year's experience rivets it more deeply in the principles and opinions of the nation. — John Quincy Adams

My custom is to read four or five chapters of the Bible every morning immediately after rising. It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day. It is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue. — John Quincy Adams

The world shall retire from me before I shall retire from the world. John Quincy Adams — Paul C. Nagel

When John Quincy Adams in the Netherlands was placed with elementary students and belittled because he did not speak Dutch, either the author or John Adams accuses school authorities of "littleness of soul". — Paul C. Nagel

To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs. — John Quincy Adams

My stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse. — John Quincy Adams

The four most miserable years of my life were my four years in the presidency. — John Quincy Adams

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

{Letter to his son and 6th US president, John Quincy Adams, November 13 1816} — John Adams

Government has no right to hurt a hair on the head of an Atheist for his Opinions. Let him have a care of his Practices.

{Letter to his son and future president, John Quincy Adams, 16 June 1816} — John Adams

I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their G-d! — John Quincy Adams

The Constitution is quite clear that no person "except a natural born citizen" is eligible to be president of the United States, but there is no such restriction placed on a president's wife. Louisa Adams is the only one of a long line of First Ladies who were born abroad, and although her father was an American and citizenship her birthright, it became an issue that was used against her husband, John Quincy Adams, when he ran for the presidency. It was a whispering campaign, to be sure, because most people knew very well that Louisa was as much a citizen as they were. A large number of people didn't understand that children born to Americans abroad inherited their parents' rights, and in Louisa's case, even some of those who did know this weren't so sure that the rule applied to her because her mother was a British subject. — Bill Harris

The barbarian chieftain, who defended his country against the Roman invasion, driven to the remotest extremity of Britain, and stimulating his followers to battle, by all that has power of persuasion upon the human heart, concludes his exhortation by an appeal to these irresistible feelings - Think of your forefathers and of your posterity. — John Quincy Adams