John Adams Quotes: 8

• Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.

• When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

• Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write .

  The Works Of John Adams, Second President Of The United States

• I read my eyes out and can't read half enough...the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.

  Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife

• Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Aristotle speaks plainly to this purpose, saying, 'that the institution of youth should be accommodated to that form of government under which they live; forasmuch as it makes exceedingly for the preservation of the present government, whatsoever it be.

  A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America

• I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.

  Diary and Autobiography of John Adams: Volumes 1-4, Diary (1755-1804) and Autobiography

• You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.

  The Letters of John and Abigail Adams

• 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.