John Quincy Adams

From the day of the Declaration, the people of the North American union, and of its constituent states, were associated bodies of civilized men and Christians, in a state of nature, but not of anarchy.

Heaven has given to every human being the power of controlling his passions, and if he neglects or loses it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it.

I have no predilection for unpopularity as such, but I hold it much preferable to the popularity of a day, which perishes with the transient topic upon which it is grounded.

It is of no use to discover our own faults and infirmities unless the discovery prompts up to amendment.

Gratitude, warm, sincere, intense, when it takes possession of the bosom, fills the soul to overflowing and scarce leaves room for any other sentiment or thought.

According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.

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

To read the Bible is of itself a laudable occupation and can scarcely fail of being a useful employment of time; but the habit of reflecting upon what you have read is equally essential as than of reading itself, to give it all the efficacy of which it is susceptible.

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

In order to preserve the dominion of our own passions, it behooves us to be constantly and strictly on our guard against the influence and infection of the passions of others.

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?

It was the special purpose of Christ's appearance upon earth to bring immortality to light.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.

The more you meditate on the laws of Moses, the more striking and brighter does their wisdom appear.

Is not the brand of 'double-dealer' stamped on the forehead of every democratic slaveholder? Are not fraud and hypocrisy the religion of the man who calls himself a democrat, and hold his fellow-man in bondage?

This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

The Declaration of Independence pronounced the irrevocable decree of political separation, between the United States and their people on the one part, and the British king, government, and nation on the other.

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.