John Quincy Adams Quotes

“He believed the future of the nation was at stake, and he returned day after day to fight his war against the “slaveocracy.” And Quincy voters sent him back to Congress again and again. Louisa fretted about his health and safety, but she had lost all influence over him and could do nothing to restrain him. He was unstoppable—a meteor spiraling out of control in the political firmament.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams

“America is on the point of bursting into flames,”
― Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams

“Setting aside her own disappointment, Abigail tried to lift her son’s spirits: “These are the times in which a genius would wish to live,” she told him. “It is not in the still calm life . . . that great characters are formed. . . . When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams

“Napoléon Bonaparte—proclaimed an end to private property. “The earth belongs to no one; its fruits belong to every one,” declared François Noël Babeuf. “There is but one sun, one air for all to breath. Let us end the disgusting distinctions between rich and poor . . . masters and servants, governor and governed.”1 As the poor rose in rebellion and joined equally deprived soldiers in rioting, Napoléon rallied them to his banner, assuaging their anger and hunger with promises of rich pastures across French borders: “You have no shoes, uniforms, shirts and almost no bread,” he called out to his followers.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams

“Behind them in America, rebel torches had set skies aglow in western Pennsylvania to protest a federal tax on whiskey.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams

“Daniel Shays, a farmer struggling to keep his property, convinced neighbors that Boston legislators were colluding with judges and lawyers to raise property taxes and foreclose when farmers found it impossible to pay.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams

“Everyone that is not a noble,” he lamented, “is a slave.”
― Harlow Giles Unger, John Quincy Adams