A people may let a King fall, yet still remain a people, but if a King let his people slip from him, he is no longer a King.
--Abigail Adams
Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.
--Abigail Adams
Dark and sour humours, especially those which have a spice of malevolence in them, are vastly disagreeable. Such men have no music in their souls.
--Abigail Adams
Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.
--Abigail Adams
Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.
--Abigail Adams
Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.
--Abigail Adams
Great learning and superior abilities... will be of little value and small estimation unless virtue, honor, truth, and integrity are added to them.
--Abigail Adams
Great necessities call out great virtues.
--Abigail Adams
History is not a web woven with innocent hands. Among all the causes which degrade and demoralize men, power is the most constant and most active.
--Abigail Adams
How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal!
--Abigail Adams
I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature; and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and, like the grave, cries, 'Give, give!'
--Abigail Adams
I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life.
--Abigail Adams
I hate to complain...No one is without difficulties, whether in high or low life, and every person knows best where their own shoe pinches.
--Abigail Adams
I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.
--Abigail Adams
If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.
--Abigail Adams
If we are surrounded by the trivial and the vicious, it is all too easy to make our peace with it.
--Abigail Adams
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
--Abigail Adams
If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.
--Abigail Adams
Knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severly for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.
--Abigail Adams
Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
--Abigail Adams
Let your observations and comparisons produce in your mind an abhorrence of domination and power, the parent of slavery, ignorance, and barbarism, which places man upon a level with his fellow tenants of the woods.
--Abigail Adams
Luxury, that baneful poison, has unstrung and enfeebled her sons.
--Abigail Adams
Many of our disappointments and much of our unhappiness arise from our forming false notions of things and persons.
--Abigail Adams
No one is without difficulties, whether in high or low life, and every person knows best where their own shoe pinches.
--Abigail Adams
Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.
--Abigail Adams
The Character which a youth acquires in the early part of his Life is of great importance towards his future prosperity-one false step may prove irretrievable to his future usefulness.
--Abigail Adams
The habits of a vigorous mind are born in contending with difficulties.
--Abigail Adams
These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
--Abigail Adams
To be good, and to do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.
--Abigail Adams
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
--Abigail Adams
Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.
--Abigail Adams
What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children; for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind.
--Abigail Adams
What is the history of mighty kingdoms and nations, but a detail of the ravages and cruelties of the powerful over the weak?
--Abigail Adams
When men know not what to do, they ought not to do they know not what
--Abigail Adams
When will Mankind be convinced that true Religion is from the Heart, between Man and his creator, and not the imposition of Man or creeds and tests?
--Abigail Adams
Whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken- and notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet.
--Abigail Adams
You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.
--Abigail Adams
Found 37 occurence(s) in 52,075 quotation(s).