Dear Abigail Quotes

“Her husband, Abigail knew, had a vivid imagination for disasters that might befall her or the children while he was in Philadelphia. Only after the deed was done did she acknowledge her mission in Boston.”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“With Betsy already famous for feelings, Nabby took pride in her independent spirit and level head. She declared that because love was founded in self-interest she would never be swept off her feet by a cad, and she shocked her friends by leaving a Harvard commencement party early. She shared her father's skepticism about human nature: in her opinion one was more likely to be good because one was happy than happy because one was good. "I believe our happiness is in great measure dependent upon external circumstances," Nabby wrote to Betsy, disagreeing with her cousin's view that we take an active role in our well-being. If success could be attained by effort or merit, why, she reasoned, should she be showered by "ten thousand sources of happiness" while others, who were equally devastating, were starved of the most basic needs?”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“John's explosion left Abigail in a quandary. Priding herself on being a good wife, she cheerfully accepted that her main role was to soothe the cares of her adored if sometimes baffling spouse. Being a wife required at least the appearance of submission. On the other hand, it would be cruel to abandon a husband altogether to his follies when it was so easy to correct him with a little tact.”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“Adams had retained his Puritan belief in hierarchy, while Jefferson, for all his aristocratic airs, was committed to leveling power. John still feared the many (as he had observed long ago in Paris), Jefferson the few.”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“Writing and conversation were vital for success in the world, Elizabeth sounded the family creed and, like Mary and Abigail when their sons left for Harvard, exhorted: “Committing our thoughts to paper makes us more attentive—more close observers—of everything which obliges us to think.” Writing a mother was particularly salubrious.”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“The west, for Perkins’s post-war generation, symbolized everything from the end of the rainbow to a last resort. Its vastness was double-edged, for chaos as well as freedom thrives on opportunity.”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“Just as variety was a boon to happiness, ritual was a great duller of pain,”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“Discipline in an Army is like the Laws, in civil Society,” he told Abigail. No community on earth could dispense with hierarchy, which he did not need to remind her was the backbone of their religious faith. “Obedience is the only Thing wanting for our Salvation—Obedience to the Laws, in the States, and Obedience to Officers in the Army.”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters

“For no matter how weak she felt, Betsy could wield words as a weapon. When an acquaintance insisted it was impossible to acquire a knowledge of the world without being deeply infected with its vices, she retorted that knowledge was a precaution rather than a trap, “for as soon as [we] have found out where [we] are mostly likely to be overcome, there let [us] place [our] strongest guard.”
― Diane Jacobs, Dear Abigail: The Intimate Lives and Revolutionary Ideas of Abigail Adams and Her Two Remarkable Sisters