John Quincy Adams, (1767-1848) 6th US President Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [1-11] of 11 John Quincy Adams quotesJohn Quincy Adams QuotesJohn Quincy Adams Always stand on principle, even if you stand alone.~ John Quincy Adams Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.~ John Quincy Adams Law logic -- an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else.~ John Quincy Adams Posterity -- you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.~ John Quincy Adams [America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.~ John Quincy Adams Individual liberty is individual power, and as the power of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation which enjoys the most freedom must necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation.~ John Quincy Adams All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.~ John Quincy Adams But the indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the RIGHT, but in the HEART. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it !) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bonds of political association - will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies ; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect Union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center.~ John Quincy Adams The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.~ John Quincy Adams Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.~ John Quincy Adams 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.~ John Quincy Adams Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print