John Adams

"Fear is the foundation of most governments."

"Old age is the most unexpected of all things that can happen to a man."

"The education of youth is the foundation of good government."

"I sometimes feel as if I were suddenly raised from the dead, when I emerge from deep thought into the presence of others."

"The Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people."

"Retirement, with little business, gives a man time to think."

"You will never be entirely free until you have become entirely honest."

"The desire to be and to have been the instruments of good to mankind is inherent in human nature."

"Genius is sorrow."

"The grand object of all science is the relief of man's estate."

"I am not one who can be easily captivated by flattery or swayed by improper motives."

"A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life."

"They generally are happiest who have the fewest wants and are least anxious about satisfying them."

"What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war?"

"There is a union between the philosopher and the practical man that cannot be broken."

"The happiness of families is the foundation of the happiness of states."

"Vanity is the most harmless of all the vices."

"My honest oath taken in the presence of Almighty God is worth more than all the special pleading of all the lawyers."

"The foundation of national policy must be laid in the principles of private morality."

"A man may deserve a good reputation; he cannot always deserve to enjoy it."

"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these states."

"Let us think of the past year with satisfaction and think of the future with hope."

"Poetry is the art by which we read the human heart."

"The only way to see what is beyond us is to climb higher than where we stand."

"I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as time upon people who are not of consequence enough for such an expenditure."

"The only means of establishing any security for the future is to remember the past."

"I am, as it were, nailed to this chair."

"The human heart is as full of subtlety and strategy as it is of feeling."

"Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the absence of yielding to fear."

"We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it."