Still-Relevant Quotations from John Adams

 

Some still-relevant quotations of John Adams, from the biography by Page Smith (1962):

 

On the existence of evil:

“God did not ‘interpose His power to prevent [evil] because this would destroy that liberty without which there could be no moral good or evil in the universe. Would you have had the universe a mere chemical process, a mere mechanical engine to produce nothing but pleasure?’ Yet at the same time Adams could not entirely resolve ‘the existence of evil with infinite wisdom, goodness, and power.’ It was a problem whose solution must rest, ultimately, with God Himself.” (Page 1077)

 

On the reduction of everything to matter:

“‘Our microscopes, I fear, will never magnify sufficiently.’ The ‘atomical’ theory of matter resolved no difficulties. Granted, ‘atoms are matter, have parts, are divisible, have active power; the question still remains, who and what moves them?’” (page 1077)

 

On the perfectibility of man:

“Did these [Enlightenment] theorists mean that ‘chemical processes may be invented by which the human body may be rendered immortal and incapable of disease upon earth?’…It was no extenuation to say that the Enlightenment philosophers were ‘honest enthusiasts carried away by the popular contagion of the times; for moral and political hysterics are at least as infectious as the smallpox or yellow fever.’ It seemed to Adams ‘humiliating to the pride of human nature that so frivolous a piece of pedantry should have made so much noise in the world and been productive of such melancholy and tragical effects.’

            “The idea that man was perfectible, in short, was ‘mischievous nonsense.’ Man was not perfectible. But this stubborn, immutable fact of human existence should in no way lessen ‘our utmost exertions to amend and improve others and in every way ameliorate the lot of humanity, invent new medicines, construct new machines, write new books, build better houses and ships, institute better governments, discountenance false religions, propagate the only true one, diminish the vices, and increase the virtues of all men and women wherever we can.’” (pages 1077–78)

 

On religion:

“‘Ask me not…whether I am a Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian. As far as they are Christians, I wish to be a fellow disciple with them all.’

            “He wished for a ‘more liberal communication of sentiments’ between all the nations of the world on the subject of religious beliefs. Each nation doubtless had something to contribute, since each might be assumed to have gained at least a partial apprehension of the divine. ‘Translations of the Bible into all languages and sent among all people I hope will produce translations into English and French, Spanish and German and Italian of sacred books of Persians, the Chinese, the Hindoos, etc., etc., etc. Then our grandchildren and my great-grand-children may compare notes and hold fast all that is good.’ His conclusion from his reading was ‘universal toleration. Let the human mind loose. It must be loosed; it will be loose. Superstition and despotism cannot confine it.’” (page 1078)

 

On the Jews:

“‘If I were an atheist and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument of civilizing the nations.’ They had preserved and propagated ‘to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent …almighty Sovereign of the Universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality and consequently of all civilization.’” (page 1079)

 

On bitterness and factions in political parties:

“‘In the struggles and competitions of fifty or sixty years, in times that tried men’s hearts and brains and spinal marrow, it could not be otherwise.’

            “One party, representing the more conservative side, would hold power for some twelve years and then there would be ‘an entire change in the administration,’ with the more radical side taking over for a similar period….Our government will be a game of leapfrog of factions, leaping over one another’s back about once in twelve years according to my computation….When a party grows strong and feels its power, it becomes intoxicated, grows presumptuous and extravagant, and breaks to pieces.’” (pages 1079–80)

 

On the possibility of a genuinely free society:

“‘One is always in danger of adopting an opinion that human nature was not made to be free. No nation has long enjoyed that partial and imperfect emancipation that we call a free government. Banks, whiskey, panem and circenses, or some other frivolities, whims, caprices, and above all idolatries and military glories, luxuries, art, sciences, taste, mausoleums, statues, pictures, adulatory histories and panegyrical orations, lies, slanders, calumnies, persecutions, have sooner or later undermined all principles, corrupted all morals, prostituted all religion, and where then is liberty?’ It was only by anticipating the loss of freedom that it could be preserved.”

            “‘There is no special Providence for us…We must and shall go the way of the earth. We ought to contend, to swim through against the wind and tide as long as we can; and the poor, injured, deceived, mocked, and insulted people will struggle till battles and victories and conquests dazzle the majority into adoration of idols. Then come popes and emperors, kingdoms and hierarchies.’” (page 1080)

 

On extremism as the principal threat to free societies:

“…‘the fanaticism of honor; the fanaticism of royalty; the fanaticism of loyalty; the fanaticism of republicanism; the fanaticism of aristocracy; the fanaticism of democracy; the fanaticism of Jacobitism and Jacobinism; the fanaticism of sans-culottism; the fanaticism of Catholicism and Protestantism, of Lutheranism and Calvinism, of Arianism and Socinianism, of common Quakerism and shaking Quakerism, of atheism and Deism, of philosophy and antipathy to learning, of peace societies and missionary societies.’ All man’s civilization was a thin veneer, maintained by law and religion. ‘When men are given up to the rule of their passions, they murder like weasels for the pleasure of murdering, like bulldogs and bloodhounds in a fold of sheep.’” (page 1080)

 

On being invited to join a “peace society”:

“ ‘It is very desirable that all wolves, bears, tigers, panthers, and lions should be tamed, civilized, and humanized,’ but it would not be advisable in the present state of the world ‘to instill in the minds of all mankind conscientious scruples about the lawfulness of defending ourselves against their ferocity by gun, drum, trumpet, blunderbuss, and thunder.’ As long as mankind remained aggressive and greedy, it was folly to talk of ‘universal and perpetual peace,’ for such talk, if accepted by the civilized, simply left them at the mercy of their more predatory neighbors, who could not be depended upon to sign the conventions of the peace-lovers or, even if they did sign, to observe them.” (page 1082)

 

On the writing of history:

“ ‘…every history must be founded on some philosophy and some policy.’ If he himself were to write a history he would base it ‘on the morality of the Gospels and leave all other philosophy and policy to shift for itself.’” (page 1082)