TIRIDATES > TIRIDATES's Quotes

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#1

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.

But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, 'whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection,' and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.”
― John Adams, The Portable John Adams

tags: common-law, innocence, judicial, justice, law

281 likes

#2

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
― John Adams, The works of John Adams,: Second President of the United States

tags: constitution, dread, political-parties, politics

225 likes

#3

“Daughter! Get you an honest Man for a Husband, and keep him honest. No matter whether he is rich, provided he be independent. Regard the Honour and moral Character of the Man more than all other Circumstances. Think of no other Greatness but that of the soul, no other Riches but those of the Heart. An honest, Sensible humane Man, above all the Littlenesses of Vanity, and Extravagances of Imagination, labouring to do good rather than be rich, to be usefull rather than make a show, living in a modest Simplicity clearly within his Means and free from Debts or Obligations, is really the most respectable Man in Society, makes himself and all about him the most happy.”
― John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife

tags: dating, dating-advice, husbands, marriage, relationships

150 likes

#4

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
― John Adams

47 likes

#5

“Nineteen twentieths of [mankind is] opaque and unenlightened. Intimacy with most people will make you acquainted with vices and errors and follies enough to make you despise them.”
― John Adams

tags: friendship, misanthropy, people, relationships, socializing

25 likes

#6

“The true source of our sufferings has been our timidity.
”
― John Adams, The Portable John Adams

20 likes

#7

“It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.”
― John Adams

20 likes

#8

“Admire and adore the Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to lessen ill, and increase good, but never assume to comprehend.”
― John Adams

tags: god, mystery

13 likes

#9

“There are persons whom in my heart I despise, others I abhor. Yet I am not obliged to inform the one of my contempt, nor the other of my detestation. This kind of dissimulation...is a necessary branch of wisdom, and so far from being immoral...that it is a duty and a virtue.”
― John Adams

tags: people, relationships

14 likes

#10

“A man ought to avow his opinions and defend them with boldness.”
― John Adams

11 likes

#11

“Knowledge in the head and virtue in the heart, time devoted to study or business, instead of show and pleasure, are the way to be useful and consequently happy.”
― John Adams

tags: advice

11 likes

#12

“It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. 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 lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”
― John Adams

11 likes

#13

“Human nature with all its infirmities and deprivation is still capable of great things. It is capable of attaining to degrees of wisdom and goodness, which we have reason to believe, appear as respectable in the estimation of superior intelligences. Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute. The virtues and powers to which men may be trained, by early education and constant discipline, are truly sublime and astonishing. Isaac Newton and John Locke are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study.”
― John Adams, Familiar Letters of John Adams & His Wife Abigail Adams, During the Revolution

tags: isaac-newton, john-locke, locke, newton

7 likes

#14

“I am bold to Say that neither you nor I, will live to See the Course which 'the Wonders of the Times' will take. Many Years, and perhaps Centuries must pass, before the current will acquire a Settled direction... yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16 1814}”
― John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail & John Adams

tags: catholic, death-blow, future, hindu, hinduism, jefferson, monster, mortal-wound, plato, platonic, pythagoras, pythagoric, thomas-jefferson

8 likes

#15

“Upon common theaters, indeed, the applause of the audience is of more importance to the actors than their own aprobation. But upon the stage of life, while concience claps, let the world hiss! On the contrary if concience disapproves, the loudest applauses of the world are of little value.”
― John Adams

8 likes

#16

“Why have I not genius to start some new thought? Some thing that will surprise the world?”
― John Adams

6 likes

#17

“I do not believe that Mr. Jefferson ever hated me. On the contrary, I believe he always like me: but he detested Hamilton and by whole administration. Then he wished to be President of the United States, and I stood in his way. So he did everything that he could to pull me down. But if I should quarral with him for that, I might quarrel with every man I have had anything to do with in life. This is human nature....I forgive all my enemies and hope they may find mercy in Heaven. Mr. Jefferson and I have grown old and retired from public life. So we are upon our ancient terms of goodwill.”
― John Adams

6 likes

#18

“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.”
― Thomas Jefferson

tags: books, honesty, wisdom

1567 likes

#19

“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
― Thomas Jefferson

tags: banks, debt, deficit-spending, government, loans, political-science, politics

1020 likes

#20

“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

tags: ataraxy, inner-peace

500 likes

#21

“Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.”
― Thomas Jefferson

93 likes

#22

“I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
― Thomas Jefferson

tags: friendships

90 likes

#23

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

tags: action, change, inspirational, misattributed-to-gandhi, philosophy, wish

114227 likes

#24

“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
― Mark Twain

tags: lies, lying, memory, truth

91994 likes

#25

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

tags: humor, insanity, life, misattributed-ben-franklin, misattributed-mark-twain, misattributed-to-einstein

64582 likes

#26

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

tags: actions, disappointed, disappointment, dream, dreams, explore, misattributed-mark-twain, sail

60171 likes

#27

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

tags: carpe-diem, happiness, live-in-the-moment, self-determination

1129 likes