John Adams Quotes

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea, if there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.

Virtue is necessary to a republic.

No free government can stand without virtue in the people, and a lofty spirit of partiotism.

Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.

No polity can be devised which shall perpetuate freedom among a people that are dead to honor and integrity. Liberty and virtue are twin sisters, and the best fabric in the world . . . .

What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.

Liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted.

In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue.

We may look up to armies for our defense, but virtue is our best security. It is not possible that any State should long remain free, where virtue is not supremely honored.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

The ages of greatest public spirit are not always eminent for private virtue.

Virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.

Integrity is the evidence of all civil virtues.

My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.

The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.

The state accumulates moral power only through the spiritual activity of their citizens.

You have to have wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue to preserve your rights and liberties.

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us.

If we are to perpetuate the state, we must not only produce citizens, but good citizens - men and women of sound bodies, clear minds and clean souls.