Currently, I am enjoying David McCullough’s biography of John Adams. McCullough’s style and the subject matter are making for a fascinating read. John Adams has been a personal hero and this biography is only increasing my adoration. Here are a few gems from Adams:
Government is a plain, simple, intelligent thing, founded in nature and reason, quite comprehensible by common sense….The true source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think….Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write….Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments…that many of our rights are inherent and essential, agreed on as maxims and established as preliminaries, even before Parliament existed….Let us read and recollect and impress upon our souls the views and ends of our more immediate forefathers, in exchanging their native country for a dreary, inhospitable wilderness….Recollect their amazing fortitude, their bitter sufferings–the severe labors of clearing the grounds, building their houses, raising their provisions, amidst dangers from wild beasts and savage men, before they had time or money or materials for commerce. Recollect the civil and religious principles and hopes and expectations which constantly supported and carried them through all hardships with patience and resignation. Let us recollect it was liberty, the hope of liberty, for themselves and us and ours, which conquered all discouragements, dangers, and trials. (p. 60-61)
The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished. (p. 68)
“Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. (p. 68)
Ancient Words 