John Quincy Adams Quotes

“A previously unknown British citizen named James Smithson had left $500,000 to the United States in his will to “found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of Knowledge among men.” Smithson was a gentleman scientist and sole heir to a large fortune. A reticent man with no family of his own and little social life, Smithson was never known to have uttered a word about the United States and gave no outward sign of democratic sympathies. His gift was, and remains, a mystery.”
― James Traub, John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit

“Adams derived bitter satisfaction from the new administration’s peccadilloes. He sent letters to Charles and to Abby describing the White House fracas over Peggy Eaton, a tavernkeeper’s daughter whom Jackson’s secretary of war and close confidante, John Eaton, had married and whom the wives of other cabinet members and of Vice President Calhoun refused to meet. Secretary”
― James Traub, John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit

“To know [John Quincy Adams] is not to love him. It is, however, to admire him greatly.”
― James Traub, John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit

“He would not bend on anything he considered a matter of principle, no matter what the possible cost to his own happiness. And with Adams, practically everything was a matter of principle.”
― James Traub, John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit