John Quincy Adams Quotes

“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 , The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

“At the age of eight, John Quincy Adams was made the man of his house while his father, John Adams, was off doing important John Adams things for America. This would be a lot of terrifying responsibility at any time in American history, but it just so happens that, when Adams was eight years old, the *Revolutionary freaking War* was happening right outside his house. He watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from his front porch, according to his diary, worried that he might be 'butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried ... as hostages by any foraging or marauding detachment of British soldiers.' I don't have the diary I kept at age eight, but I think the only things I worried about was whether or not they'd have for dogs in the school the next day and if I had the wherewithal and clarity of purpose to collect all of the Pokemon. John Q, on the other hand, guarded his house, mother, and siblings during wartime.

This isn't to imply that eight-year-old John Quincy Adams could have beaten eight-year-old you in a fight, but to imply that eight-year-old John Quincy Adams could beat you *as an adult*.”
― Daniel O'Brien, How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country

“...the founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected {George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson}, not a one had professed a belief in Christianity...

When the war was over and the victory over our enemies won, and the blessings and happiness of liberty and peace were secured, the Constitution was framed and God was neglected. He was not merely forgotten. He was absolutely voted out of the Constitution. The proceedings, as published by Thompson, the secretary, and the history of the day, show that the question was gravely debated whether God should be in the Constitution or not, and after a solemn debate he was deliberately voted out of it.... There is not only in the theory of our government no recognition of God's laws and sovereignty, but its practical operation, its administration, has been conformable to its theory. Those who have been called to administer the government have not been men making any public profession of Christianity... Washington was a man of valor and wisdom. He was esteemed by the whole world as a great and good man; but he was not a professing Christian...

[Sermon by Reverend Bill Wilson (Episcopal) in October 1831, as published in the Albany Daily Advertiser the same month it was made]”
― Bird Wilson

“Someone once called Lincoln two-faced. 'If I am two-faced, would I wear the face that I have now?' Lincoln asked."

"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.”
― Judith St. George, So You Want to Be President?

“If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunites of seeing the world, and obtaining a knowledge of Mankind than any of your cotemporarys, that you have never wanted a Book, but it has been supplied you, that your whole time has been spent in the company of Men of Literature and Science. How unpardonable would it have been in you, to have been a Blockhead.”
― Abigail Adams

“Por donde sea que el estandarte de la libertad y la independencia se haya desplegado o se vaya a desplegar, ahí
estarán su corazón, sus bendiciones y sus plegarias. Pero no irán a ultramar en busca de monstruos que destruir.
Desearán la libertad y la independencia
de todos, pero sólo serán paladines y
justificadores de sí mismos.”
― John Quincy Adams

“At the age of eight, John Quincy Adams was made the man of his house while his father, John Adams, was off doing important John Adams things for America. This would be a lot of terrifying responsibility at any time in American history, but it just so happens that, when Adams was eight years old, the *Revolutionary freaking War* was happening right outside his house. He watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from his front porch, according to his diary, worried that he might be 'butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried ... as hostages by any foraging or marauding detachment of British soldiers.' I don't have the diary I kept at age eight, but I think the only things I worried about was whether or not they'd have corndogs in school the next day and if I had the wherewithal and clarity of purpose to collect all of the Pokemon. John Q, on the other hand, guarded his house, mother, and siblings during wartime.

This isn't to imply that eight-year-old John Quincy Adams could have beaten eight-year-old you in a fight, but to imply that eight-year-old John Quincy Adams could beat you *as an adult*.”
― Daniel O'Brien, How to Fight Presidents: Defending Yourself Against the Badasses Who Ran This Country

“Never confuse personal ambition with the dictates of patriotism.”
― Paul Nagel

“Duty is ours; results are God's.”
― John Quincy Adams