John Adams quotes

John Adams: I do not have the luxury of your birth or your purse, Sam, to spend my days fomenting dissension. I intend to prove this colony is governed by law, whatever you and your Sons of Liberty may say on the matter.

Samuel Adams: We're all Sons of Liberty here.

John Adams: [while cross-examining a witness who claims several men were carrying clubs] A lawful assembly. Not a riot, a lawful assembly in which people were carrying clubs. To make certain nothing unlawful occurred, perhaps?

Mr. Goddard: The men are rope makers, sir. As any true Boston man would know, the clubs they were carrying are for beating out rope.

John Adams: For beating out rope, indeed. But could they not also be used for beating out men's brains?

Abigail Adams: [after reviewing John's summary for the defense] John, there's not a person in Boston who doubts your education, your command of language...

John Adams: Oh, dear. You are charming me, Abigail. You never charm me unless what you're about to say is cutting.

Abigail Adams: John, vanity.

John Adams: Vain?

Abigail Adams: You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition. You do not need to quote great men to show you are one.

John Adams: Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments, that many of our rights are inherent and essential, agreed on as maxims and established as preliminaries even before Parliament existed. We have a right to them, derived from our Maker. Our forefathers have earned and bought liberty for us at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasures and their blood. Liberty is not built on the doctrine that a few nobles have a right to inherit the earth. It stands on this principle: That the meanest and lowest of the people are, by the unalterable, indefeasible laws of God and nature, as well entitled to the benefit of the air to breathe, light to see, food to eat and clothes to wear as the nobles or the king. That is liberty. And liberty will reign in America!

John Adams: [after John Dickinson proposes the Continental Congress open negotations with Great Britain] The time for negotiation is past. The actions of the British army at Lexington and Concord speak plainly enough. If we wish to regain our natural-born rights as Englishmen, then we must fight for them.

John Dickinson: I have looked for our rights in the laws of nature and can find them only in the laws of political society. I have looked for our rights in the constitution of the English government and found them there! Our rights have been violated, Mr. Adams; that is beyond dispute. We must provide a plan to convince Parliament to restore those rights! Do we wish to become aliens to the mother country? No! No, gentlemen, we must come to terms with the mother country. No doubt the same ship which carries forth our list of grievances will bring back their redress.

John Adams: Mr. Dickinson, my wife and young children live on the main road to Boston, fewer than five miles from the full might of the British Empire. Should they sit and wait for Gage and his savages to rob them of their home, their possessions, their very lives? No, sir! Powder and artillery are the surest and most infallible conciliatory measures we can adopt!

John Dickinson: If you exclude the possibility of peace, Mr. Adams, then I tell you now, you will have blood on your hands!

John Adams: And I tell you, Mr. Dickinson, that to hold out an olive branch to Britain is a measure of gross imbecility.

John Dickinson: If you New England men continue to oppose our measures of reconciliation, you will leave us no choice but to break off from you entirely and carry on the opposition in our own way.

John Adams: I sit in judgment of no man's religion, Mr. Dickinson, but your Quaker sensibilities do us a gross disservice, sir. It is one thing to turn the other cheek. But to lie down in the ground like a snake and crawl toward the seat of power in abject surrender, well, that is quite another thing, sir. And I have no stomach for it, sir! No stomach at all!

John Dickinson: We will exhaust all peaceful approaches, Mr. Adams. And we will do it with or without the approbation of you and your Boston insurrectionists!

John Adams: It is not a question of men and women. It is a matter of politics.

Abigail Adams: Politics? Politics? And do women not live politics, John Adams? When I go to the cupboard and I find no coffee, no sugar, no pins, no meat, am I not living politics? This war touches people that your Congress treats with the same contempt King George deserves for the people of Boston. I mean women, yes, and slaves, too, for that matter. Though I am sure you wish I would not mention that subject, as it might upset your southern friends.

John Adams: You're harsh, madam.

Abigail Adams: I am cold. And frightened. I am afraid this war will never end or begin.

John Adams: And however much I talk and talk, I will never carry the Congress.

John Adams: Objects of the most stupendous magnitude. Measures which will affect the lives of millions, born and unborn are now before us. We must expect a great expense of blood to obtain them but we must always remember that a free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased a too dear a rate as there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of greater importance to mankind. My worthy colleague from Pennsylvania has spoken with great ingenuity and eloquence. He's given you a grim prognostication of our national future, but where he foresees apocalypse, I see hope. I see a new nation ready to take its place in the world. Not an empire but a republic. And a republic of laws, not men. Gentlemen, we are in the very midst of revolution. The most complete unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of the world. How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children? I am not without apprehensions, gentlemen. But the end that we have in sight is more than worth all the means. My belief says that the hour has come. My judgment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, all that I am and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to stake upon it. While I'll live, let me have a country. A free country.

John Adams: [writing a letter to Abigail] My dearest friend, the break is made and now our work begins. You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. 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. It is the will of Heaven that the two countries should be sundered forever. It may be the will of Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wasting and distresses yet more dreadful. Yet through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory and that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction.

Benjamin Franklin: Is it your purpose to destroy everything we've accomplished? To engineer the recall of the fleet under Admiral d'Estaing? Or is this some new kind of diplomatic initiative? The direct insult followed by the petulant whine? What are you thinking of? A good diplomat, Mr. Adams, observes much, acts little and speaks softly.

John Adams: The Comte de Vergennes means to keep his hand beneath our chin to prevent us from drowning, but not to keep our heads above the water.

Benjamin Franklin: Have you learned nothing, Mr. Adams? If you continue to exasperate and antagonize these people...

John Adams: As I did in Philadelphia and we declared independence, you recall.

Benjamin Franklin: In Philadelphia, we negotiated independence.

John Adams: Well, you may be as patient and accommodating as you like, Doctor. But for myself, I will not voluntarily put on the chains of France while I am struggling to throw off those of Great Britain!