John Quincy Adams quotes

John Quincy Adams was an American statesman and diplomat who served as the sixth President of the United States. Known for his strong advocacy against slavery and his role in formulating U.S. foreign policy, especially the Monroe Doctrine. He continued to serve his country as a congressman after his presidency, becoming a leading opponent of slavery in the House of Representatives. Here are 59 of his quotes:

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. (John Quincy Adams)
Where annual elections end where slavery begins. View quote
John Quincy Adams
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
John Quincy Adams
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. View quote
John Quincy Adams
We know the redemption must come. The time and the manner of its coming we know not: It may come in peace, or it may come in blood; but whether in peace or in blood, LET IT COME. View quote
John Quincy Adams
In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do. View quote
John Quincy Adams
To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is ... the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself and enlarges the sphere of existence. View quote
John Quincy Adams
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade. View quote
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)
Slavery is the great and foul stain upon the North American Union... A dissolution, at least temporary, of the Union, as now constituted, would now be certainly necessary... The Union might then be reorganized on the fundamental principle of emancipation. View quote
John Quincy Adams
This is the last of Earth! I am content. View quote
John Quincy Adams
Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel. View quote
John Quincy Adams
I told him that I thought it was law logic - an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in Courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else. View quote
John Quincy Adams
The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty. View quote
John Quincy Adams
Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. View quote
John Quincy Adams
Among the sentiments of most powerful operation upon the human heart, and most highly honorable to the human character, are those of veneration for our forefathers and of love for our posterity. View quote
John Quincy Adams
Try and fail,but don't fail to try. View quote
John Quincy Adams
America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. View quote
John Quincy Adams
I am a warrior, so that my son may be a merchant, so that his son may be a poet. (John Quincy Adams)
This house will bear witness to his piety; this town, his birthplace, to his munificence; history to his patriotism; posterity to the depth and compass of his mind. View quote
John Quincy Adams
The first steps of the slaveholder to justify by argument the peculiar instutitions is to deny the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence. He denies that all men are created equal. He denies that he has inalienable rights. View quote
John Quincy Adams
I can never join with my voice in the toast which I see in the papers attributed to one of our gallant naval heroes. I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right. View quote
John Quincy Adams
I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain. View quote
John Quincy Adams