Dearest Friend Quotes

“A state of inactivity was never mean for man....There are hours when I feel unequal to the trial...Let no person say what they would or not
do since we are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act...necessity has no law...”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“I always thought a laughing philosopher a much wiser man than the sniveling one (cmizdrenje)”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“We will live in independence because we will live within our income.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“What most upset her, was the widespread use of slave labor. ...It is true Republicanism that drives the slaves half fed, and destitute of clothing...to labor...while the owner walks about idle...white men considered idleness a virtue even if they owned only one slave or none. No white man would do work considered too menial for his race.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Services rendered to a country in a diplomatic line can be known only to a few – if they are important and they become conspicuous they rather excite envy than gratitude.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“With a drunkard father who neglected his business, how could they ever hope to have education and care they deserve? ....I want to have them not smatterers intoxicated with superficial knowledge, but hard students and deep thinkers...”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“If he has none to give him pain, he has none to give him pleasure. She never expressed doubts about the way she raised children..she continued to believe mothers influence was paramount in her children's future development, she also understood no one was perfect.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“To deny James an education was attacking principles of liberty and equality upon the only ground which it ought to be supported and equality of rights. If James could not go to school, how could he hope to equip himself to earn a living?”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Prudence is a sorry matchmaker...”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“No man, even if he is sixty yrs of age ought to live more than three months at a time from his family...”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Women were responsible for raising next generation of citizens, they themselves needed to be well educated in order to teach their children. She never believed as many men of her time, women were innately inferior to men, she conceded they had different traits and talents, which fitted them for a social role different from men's. ...Marriage and family were among the basic props of social order, anything that undermined them threatened the social order, she believed. Rich or poor, male or female, every person had his place in society and must fulfill his roles and duties, or chaos would result. ...However brilliant a woman's talents may be, she ought never to shine at the expense of her husband. ...women should confine themselves to domestic government...”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Liberty yes - but equality for all men? The end of all distinctions of social class? Such thinking smacked of anarchy, and of the worst abuses of liberty. In her view purpose of American Rev was to change government not society. ...unless mankind were universally enlightened which never can be, they are unfit for freedom nor do I believe that our Creator designed it for them. In nation like US, the enlightened minority of population were intended to rule, rather than hereditary class as in nations of Europe.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“she learned slowly and painfully that it was easier to overthrow a government than to create a one...”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“She blamed moral vices that weakened the whole society and worried that Americans were heading in the same direction....
Thought that so much land was owned by so few people and that so many ordinary people could never hope to own their land seemed to her the most damning characteristic of the Old World. ...
I do not regret that I made this excursion since it has only more attached me to America.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Knowledge will teach candour, she who aims at attainment of it will find her countenance improved as her mind is informed and her looks enabled as her heart is elevated, thus may she become a pleasing companion to the main of science, sensibility, enabled to form the minds of her kids to virtue, knowledge, not less capable or willing to superintend domestic economy of her family for having wandered beyond the limits of kitchen.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Every rational being she believed must have some purpose in life beyond mere pleasure for pleasure's sake. Enjoyment without settled principles,
laudable purposes, mental exertions, internal comfort, were meaningless, and how are these to be acquired in the hurry and tumult of the world?”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“She thought only men of property and talent should hold positions in government and once elected they should be allowed to rule with a minimum of popular interference. ..They cast off their old habits of frugality and tried to rise above social position as well - a double sin.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Heart agitated with remains of former passion is most susceptible to a new one...How unpardonable would it have been in you to have been a blockhead. ...Abigail knew no amount of largess could repay her sisters for their attention to her children.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“No effort could convince her that women could engage in such activities without loosing their feminity. Games seemed especially unfit for women. ..She was often torn between her belief that Americans were above European style dissipation, and her fear it was only a matter of time before they would follow in Europe path....Both of them hostile to royalty and privileges of rank, flaunted their Americaness and refused to curry favor with people of rank.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Let them use at home economy where it is a virtue, but do not let them disgrace themselves abroad by narrowness....What a fool do I look like to be accoutered and stand here for 4 hours only to be spoken to by royalty.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“What a sad misfortune is to have body in one place and soul in another...I love to feel free...”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“The custom of confession seemed designed to encourage sin by granting ready forgiveness.
Neither Abigail nor any member of her family ever wavered in their preference for life in America over life in Europe. In France they lived far grander style than they ever lived in Braintree. ...her unshakable belief was that America was superior to Europe - superiority based on simplicity, its supposed lack of extreme wealth and class distinctions, its religion and its emphasis on family”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“Just as victorious were God`s rewards to virtuous ppl,so defeats were His means of shaking the country out of its complacency,
spurring it on to greater efforts. She continually alternated between praising American virtues, condemning Am vices, which always seemed
to her to be increasing.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“America will not wear chains while her daughters are virtuous, but corrupt their morals by a general depravity, believe me sir a state or nation is undone. Was not Adam safe while Eve was innocent?”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“For a woman, there is no such thing as retirement. She always enjoyed her role as wife, mother, and household manager.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams

“I never desired so much land unless we could have lived upon it.”
― Lynne Withey, Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams