John Adams Quotes

The great questions that have troubled the country are about the authority of the magistrates and the liberty of the people.

The people who own the country ought to govern it.

In no form of government is there an absolute identity of interest between the people and their rulers

REPUBLIC, n. A nation in which, the thing governing and the thing governed being the same, there is only a permitted authority to enforce an optional obedience.

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

In a republican land the power behind the throne is the power.

In a democracy, as a matter of course, every effort is made to seize upon and create publick opinion, which is, substantially, securing power.

If the people be governors, who shall be governed?

All free governments are party governments.

The public has to have a head, and if the President takes the heads away, the public will have his.

The process of our democracy must not be imperiled by the denial of essential powers of free government.

Public opinion sets bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign in every free one.

America is not a country that wanders around trusting people with power. This is a country that wants accountability.

Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.

Politics is activity in relation to power.

I believe in the greatness of our democracy.

Democracy is a good client.

Liberty does not exist where rights are on one side and power on the other. To be liberty, rights must be armed with vital powers. A people cannot be free who do not participate in the control of the government which operates upon them.

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.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

When mankind first saw the necessity of government, it is probable that many had conceived the desire of ruling.

Let the people think they govern and they will be governed.

The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and the ignorant believe to be liberty.

You may not be thinking about politics, but politics is thinking about you.