Abigail and John Quotes

“American freedoms, he argued, derived from three sources: nature, an educated populace, and God. “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings and a desire to know.” John observed with pleasure that “this little production had its full Share of praise,” but he did not elaborate further about the event that took place in the chamber above. The infant was named Abigail after her mother and great-grandmother and called Nabby, the diminutive form that distinguished her from her mother. With the birth of their first child, both Abigail and John marked another milestone in their expectations of married life. “Your Diana become a Mamma—can you credit it?” Abigail announced to a friend. She was incredulous at this transformation in her status. “Bless’d with a charming Girl whose pretty Smiles already delight my Heart,” she persisted, adding self-consciously, “You my Friend are well acquainted with all the tender feelings of a parent, therefore I need not apologize for the present overflow.” Motherhood added another dimension to her responsibilities, for the management of her little home already”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage

“Marriage ceremonies in the eighteenth century were not the elaborate affairs that they became in the nineteenth. They were, in fact, simple by comparison with other social milestones, such as graduation from Harvard, which had become notorious for its hilarity, or election day, at which time local taverns did a brisk business. Marriage had only recently been sacrilized as a religious function, having been earlier performed by magistrates of the law. Now ministers read the contract by which two individuals joined themselves for life, a covenant really, in the Puritan sense of testifying before God to be bound in love and service to each other. Abigail and John took this oath on October 25, 1764, at the parsonage in Weymouth before their families and close friends.”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage

“Gridley, however, would demand discipline of his new protégé. Pursue the law and not the gain of it, he admonished. Don’t socialize, and don’t marry too early. “An early marriage will obstruct your improvement…and twill involve you in expense.” He then sent John off to read Coke’s Institutes of the Laws of England. John bound himself to this agreement, but reluctantly because he was twenty-three years old. The pledge to avoid social life entirely, and particularly female companionship, pained him. He was far too extroverted to isolate himself entirely with the law books that Mr. Gridley gave him. Still, he mastered his assigned readings so successfully that Gridley invited him to participate in an elite club of lawyers that met to discuss legal theory. But the command to avoid socializing proved too hard. He managed to fulfill his commitment to Gridley while also keeping company with friends. In fact, John was under the spell of a different romance when he and Abigail met for the first time in the summer of 1759. His visit to the Weymouth parsonage occurred because he accompanied his good friend Richard Cranch, who was courting Abigail’s older sister, Mary. “Polly and Nabby are Wits,” he noted dismissively, using the Smith sisters’ nicknames. John meant that Abigail and Mary were smart and clever, that they sparkled in conversation. Perhaps he was even intimidated by the young women’s erudition. They certainly were interesting and lively. John, however, was currently enamored of Hannah Quincy, a cousin of Abigail’s, whom he had met the previous winter. During that winter, while he was still bound to read law with Jeremiah”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage

“Remarkably, the letters that survive from John Adams’s brothers are barely literate.”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage

“Abigail Smith Adams and John Adams were unique individuals. They loved each other; they enjoyed each other’s company; they relied upon each other even when apart; they trusted each other and were loyal. When asked at the end of their lives what had been the hardest experience of their long years, both separately replied that it was living apart for so many years. For people who believed in sacrifice as a way of life, theirs was the ultimate performance of duty as mandated by their Puritan past.”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage

“By this time, Abigail was signing herself “Diana,” using a fanciful classical name, as young women were wont to do in her time. This Diana, however, alive in Weymouth, was not the chaste virgin goddess of the hunt but eighteen years old and betrothed to a man who was given to huge passions. She saw only his greatness, recognized his genius, and was drawn to his brilliant talk as well as the energy that matched her own eagerness to engage with life.”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage

“Adam Smith, who suggested that the “horror of poverty” lay not in hunger but in “obscurity.” Poor people suffer the indignity of being ignored. “To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable.” And if poor people cannot look to themselves, then they must look up to another person, whom they consider a hero. Their identification with heroes provided meaning in life. In a complicated set of discourses, John argued that all men, from the highest to the lowest ranks, depend upon titles to give meaning to their existence.”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage

“Let these truths…be indelibly impressed on our Minds that we cannot be happy without being free, that we cannot be free without being secure in our property, that we cannot be secure in our property if without our consent others may as by right take it away. Abigail”
― Edith B. Gelles, Abigail & John: Portrait of a Marriage