If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve? – John Adams
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation. – John Adams
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 sixthe swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace. – John Adams
My country has contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived. – John Adams
…the thoughtful excitement of lonely rambles, of gardening, and of other like occupations, where the mind has leisure to must during the healthful activity of the body, with the fresh and wakeful breezes blowing round it… – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers