Frases célebres de John Adams
Original: «But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever».
Fuente: Citado en Kirov, Blago. John Adams: Quotes & Facts. Editor Blago Kirov, 2016. ISBN 9788892577947
Fuente: Carta a Abigail Adams, 17 de julio de 1775.
Notas para una oración en Braintree, primavera de 1772.
Original: «There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty».
Fuente: The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Editor Elizabeth M. Knowles. Colaborador Elizabeth M. Knowles. Edición revisada. Editorial Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 9780198601739. p. 3.
Original: «There is something very unnatural and odious in a government a thousand leagues off. A whole government of our own choice, managed by persons whom we love, revere, and can confide in, has charms in it for which men will fight».
Fuente: Adams, John. The Letters of John and Abigail Adams. Editor Simon and Schuster, 2012. ISBN 9781625584427.
Fuente: Carta a Abigail Adams, 17 de mayo de 1776.
Original: «But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six—the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace».
Fuente: Adams, John. The works of John Adams, second President of the United States. Volume 1. Editor Best Books on, 1856. ISBN 9781623764623. p. 176.
Fuente: Carta a Abigail Adams, 17 de julio de 1775.
Original: «Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, They may change their Rulers and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. They will only exchange Tyrants and Tyrannies».
Fuente: Adams, John. The Works of John Adams Vol. 9: Letters and State Papers 1799 - 1811. Editorial Jazzybee Verlag, 2015. ISBN 9783849648251.
Fuente: Carta a Zabdiel Adams, 21 de junio de 1776.
John Adams Frases y Citas
Original: «Human nature with all its infirmities and depravation is still capable of great things. It is capable of attaining to degrees of wisdom and goodness, which we have reason to believe, appear as respectable in the estimation of superior intelligences. Education makes a greater difference between man and man, than nature has made between man and brute. The virtues and powers to which men may be trained, by early education and constant discipline, are truly sublime and astonishing. Newton and Locke are examples of the deep sagacity which may be acquired by long habits of thinking and study».
Fuente: Carta a Abigail Adams, 29 de octubre de 1775.
Original: «The highest, the transcendent glory of the American Revolution was this—it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the precepts of Christianity».
Fuente: Aikman, David. One Nation without God?: The Battle for Christianity in an Age of Unbelief. Editorial Baker Books, 2012. ISBN 9781441235848. https://books.google.es/books?id=vovlWkHq56cC&pg=PT52&dq=The+highest,+the+transcendent+glory+of+the+American+Revolution+was+this%E2%80%94it+connected,+in+one+indissoluble+bond,+the+principles+of+civil+government+with+the+precepts+of+Christianity.+I&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf3YzK2uXfAhUJ_BQKHfFkDfMQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=The%20highest%2C%20the%20transcendent%20glory%20of%20the%20American%20Revolution%20was%20this%E2%80%94it%20connected%2C%20in%20one%20indissoluble%20bond%2C%20the%20principles%20of%20civil%20government%20with%20the%20precepts%20of%20Christianity.%20I&f=false
“Hay dos formas de conquistar y esclavizar a una nación. Una es la espada, la otra es la deuda.”
Fuente: Soriano Llobera, Juan M. Prensa económica, ¿Ángel o demonio?, de la democracia a la actualidad. Editorial Bibliolibrary Editorial, 2012. ISBN 9788493949228. p. 108.
“Estoy de acuerdo con usted en que en la política la vía del medio es ninguna.”
Original: «I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all».
Fuente: Adams, John. The works of John Adams, second President of the United States. Volume 1. Editor Best Books on, 1856. ISBN 9781623764623. p. 206.
Fuente: Carta a Horatio Gates, 23 de marzo de 1776.
Original: «Tis impossible to judge with much Precision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected».
Fuente: Adams, John. The Works of John Adams Vol. 2. Editorial Jazzybee Verlag. ISBN 9783849693831. p. 43.
Fuente: Carta a Jonathan Sewall, octubre de 1759.
John Adams: Frases en inglés
Letter to Jonathan Jackson (2 October 1780), "The Works of John Adams" http://books.google.com/books?id=j9NKAAAAYAAJ&dq=John%20Adams%20works&pg=PA511#v=onepage&q&f=false, vol 9, p. 511
1780s
Letter to Abigail Adams (3 July 1776); because of the official adoption of the United States Declaration of Independence two days later, the fourth of July rather than the second, became known as the U.S. Independence Day
1770s
“You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.”
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (15 July 1813)
1810s
Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October 1798, in Revolutionary Services and Civil Life of General William Hull http://books.google.com/books?id=E2kFAAAAQAAJ&dq=editions%3AVsZcW99fWPgC&pg=PA265#v=onepage&q&f=false (New York, 1848), pp 265-6. There are some differences in the version that appeared in The Works of John Adams (Boston, 1854), vol. 9, pp. 228-9 http://books.google.com/books?id=PZYKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA228#v=onepage&q&f=false, most notably the words "or gallantry" instead of "and licentiousness".
1790s
Letter to J.H. Tiffany (31 March 1819)
1810s
Autobiography (1802–1807), passage on events of April 6, 1776, The Founding Fathers: John Adams: A Biography in his own Words https://web.archive.org/web/20111029143754/http://home.nas.com/lopresti/ps2.htm (1973), by James Bishop Peabody, Newsweek, New York, p. 197
1800s
Adams as misquoted by David Barton, in "The Dream of Dr. Benjamin Rush & God's Hand in Reconciling John Adams and Thomas Jefferson" in WallBuilders (June 2008) http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=10152; omitting many words, giving a very misleading impression that Adams (who did not believe in the Christian Trinity) is endorsing the viewpoint that a government must be administered by the Holy Ghost to be legitimate. Barton went on to use another version, substituting some of Adams' words with false ones:
Misattributed
1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
XXXI, p. 517. Also quoted in The Political Writings of John Adams (2001) edited by George W. Carey, p. 440 http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0895262924&id=zwKs6Wf2NUEC&pg=PA440&lpg=PA440&ots=qW8I2vCTNZ&dq=%22solemn+truth+in+collision+with+a+dogma+of+a+sect%22&sig=BrWgHvNRAAWcN0rXxdBa7zjeEcc
1810s, Letters to John Taylor (1814)
Adams as misquoted by David Barton on Glenn Beck (Fox News) on , shown in the film The Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers (2010), at 2:21:32. Without the ellipses and substituted words, this section of Adams's letter of (21 December 1809) http://books.google.com/books?id=84oTAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA248 reads:
But <span style="color:gray">my Friend there is something very serious in this Business. The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in</span> this earth. <span style="color:gray">Not a Baptism, not a Marriage not a Sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the Bishops on the heads of Candidates for the Ministry.</span> In the same manner as the holy Ghost is transmitted from Monarch to Monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a Dove and by that other Phyal which I have seen in the Tower of London. <span style="color:gray">There is no Authority civil or religious: there can be no legitimate Government but what is administered by</span> this <span style="color:gray">Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All, without it is Rebellion and Perdition, or in more orthodox words Damnation.</span> Although this is all Artifice and Cunning in the secret original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lay down their Lives under the Ax or the fiery Fagot for it. Alas the poor weak ignorant Dupe human Nature. There is so much King Craft, Priest Craft, Gentlemens Craft, Peoples Craft, Doctors Craft, Lawyers Craft, Merchants Craft, Tradesmens Craft, Labourers Craft and Devils Craft in the world, that it seems a desperate and impracticable Project to undeceive it.
Do you wonder that Voltaire and Paine have made Proselytes? Yet there was as much subtlety, Craft and Hypocrisy in Voltaire and Paine and more too than in Ignatius Loyola.
This Letter is so much in the tone of my Friend the Abby Raynal and the Grumblers of the last age, that I pray you to burn it. I cannot copy it.
<span style="color:gray">Your Prophecy my dear Friend has not become History as yet. I have no Resentment or Animosity against the Gentleman and abhor the Idea of blackening his Character or transmitting him in odious Colours to Posterity.
But I write with difficulty and am afraid of diffusing myself in too many Correspondences. If I should receive a Letter from him however I should not fail to acknowledge and answer it.</span>
Misattributed
As quoted in Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (1984), by William A. DeGregorio, pp. 19–20
On the Vice-Presidency of the United States, in a letter to Abigail Adams (19 December 1793).
1790s
“What other form of government, indeed, can so well deserve our esteem and love?”
1790s, Inaugural Address (Saturday, March 4, 1797)
On the White House, in a letter to Abigail Adams (2 November 1800)
Franklin D. Roosevelt had this inscribed on the mantlepiece of the State Dining Room
1800s
Letter to Benjamin Rush (21 June 1811); published in Old Family Letters: Copied from the Originals for Alexander Biddle (1892), p. 287 http://books.google.com/books?id=5d8hAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Jefferson+ran+away+with+all+the+stage+effect+of+that%22; also quoted in TIME magazine (25 October 1943) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,796192-2,00.html
1810s
"Discourses on Davila: A Series of Papers on Political History," No. 4 Gazette of the United States (1790–1791)
1790s, Discourses on Davila (1790)
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (3 December 1813), published in Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0807842303&id=SzSWYPOz6M8C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=kTAZL3ImRq&dq=%22Adams-Jefferson+letters%22&sig=tVGzBe0XVhXaF2p0FQLGy4GK6bk#PRA2-PR17,M1 (UNC Press, 1988), p. 404
1810s
As quoted in Statesman and Friend: Correspondence of John Adams with Benjamin Waterhouse, 1784–1822 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015026646540;view=1up;seq=69 (1927), edited by Worthington C. Ford, Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, and Company. p. 57
Attributed
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (23 August 1787), The Works of John Adams.
1780s
1810s, Letter to William Tudor (1818)
Treaty with the bey of Tunis https://web.archive.org/web/20150712204904/http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2013/11/20131104285694.html#axzz3sjER1BV1 (1797).
1790s
James Truslow Adams; sometimes rendered : "There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live".
Misattributed
Letter to T. Pickering (7 December 1799), Philadelphia. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2107#lf1431-09_head_047
1790s
“Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.”
Letter to Benjamin Rush (18 April 1808)
1800s
XVIII, p. 483. Usually misquoted as "Democracy…while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy".
1810s, Letters to John Taylor (1814)
1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Letter to B. Franklin (16 April 1781), Leyden. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/2105#lf1431-07_head_273
1780s
