Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Politicians
John Adams
Second president of the United States (1735-1826). Founding Father, Declaration drafter, first vice-president, one-term president. His refusal of war with France cost him re-election. He died on independence's jubilee.
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John Adams's Other Quotes
I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House, and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
Thomas Jefferson survives.
Related Quotes
Human nature is evil; its goodness is the result of deliberate effort.
-- Xunzi
Compassion is the foundation of morality.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race ... those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it.
-- John Stuart Mill
Decent business management is the most profitable approach in the long run, and business morality need not be as impoverished as it is often portrayed.
-- Robert Bosch
The public sphere is a social phenomenon just as elementary as action, the actor, the group, or the collective; but it eludes the conventional sociological concepts.
-- Jürgen Habermas
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
-- Immanuel Kant