John Adams Quotes

Since (by the good providence of God) a country in America is fallen to my lot, I thought it not less my duty than my honest interest to give some public notice of it to the world, that those of our own, or other nations, that are inclined to transport themselves or families beyond the seas, may find another country added to their choice

Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.

America is the last great goal of these migrations.

My parents came from Russia and suddenly they wound up in Boston, Massachusetts, Brookline, Massachusetts and they felt the sun rose and set on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's backside because he meant so much to them. This was freedom. This was something totally different from the Russia they had left.

My parents came to the United States in the early years of this century as part of a wave of Russian Jewish immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity in the New World.

The event of the landing of these brethren upon our shores is to be, not without its beneficial effect, as well to the colored population of this country, as it promises to be to ill-fated Africa.

My parents were lured to America by the democracy here promised. In our family, freedom was a word to conjure by. Hoping for larger privileges for the growing family of children, they brought them to the New World, the world of many intellectual as well as material advantages.

I speak on due consideration because Britain, France, and Mexico, have abolished slavery, and all other European states are preparing to abolish it as speedily as they can.

There's a lot to love about America - freedom, the melting pot of diversity, individualism - all attractive concepts, especially to an introvert. In fact, the introverts were probably the first to feel crowded in England and to daydream about all the space they would find in the New World. Peace! Quiet!

And it was from Boston that one in every six American families began their journey into the land of the free.

Millions upon millions of people came here full of hope and aspiration to this extraordinary land of liberty and opportunity, and helped build the United States. So the Atlantic Ocean was absolutely critical to the story of America.

Free labor will win.

In the disposition of these unfortunate people, there are two rational objects to be distinctly kept in view. First. The establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa, which may introduce among the aborigines the arts of cultivated life, and the blessings of civilization and science. By doing this, we may make to them some retribution for the long course of injuries we have been committing on their population.

What shall we do with the Negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace unless we get rid of the Negroes. Certainly they cannot, if we don’t get rid of the Negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us…. Now we shall have no use for our very large navy. What then are our difficulties in sending the blacks away? … I wish you would examine the question and give me your views upon it and go into the figures as you did before in some degree as to show whether the Negroes can be exported

[God] largely augmented our free population by emancipation and immigration.

The emancipation of Texas will extend the principles of self-government, over a rich and neighbouring country, and open a vast field there for enterprise, wealth, and happiness, and for those who wish to escape from the frozen blasts of a northern climate, by removing to a more congenial one. It will promote and accelerate the march of the present age, for it will open a door through which a bright and constant stream of light and intelligence will flow from this great northern fountain over the benighted regions of Mexico

Many men of excellent wits and of divers singular gifts, overthrown by ... by some folly of youth, that are not able to live in England, may there be raised again, and do their country good service; and many needful uses there may (to great purpose) require the saving of great numbers, that for trifles may otherwise be devoured by the gallows. Many soldiers and servitors, in the end of the wars, that might be hurtful to this realm, may there be unladen, to the common profit and quiet of this realm, and to our foreign benefi there, as they may be employed. The frye [children] of the wandering beggars of England, that grow up idly, and hurteful and burdenous to this realm, may there be unladen, better bred up, and may people waste countries to the home and foreign benefit, and to their own more happy state.

… these bold and indigent strangers, saying as their excuse when challenged for titles, that we had solicited for colonists and they had come accordingly … [that it] was against the laws of God and nature that so much land should be idle while so many Christians wanted it to work on and to raise their bread..

To have found a great people sunk in the lowest depths of slavery and superstition, to have so ruled them as to have made them desirous and capable of all the privileges of citizens, would indeed be a title to glory all our own.

Her light shall pierce through the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression.

The cause of human liberty has been advanced by the overthrow of the Mohammedan slave trade in Zanzibar and partially in Egypt, and the property in slaves is being abolished in the Portuguese possessions in southeast Africa, and in the neighboring island of Madagascar

A new era, wakes before our eyes, the old world of force is gone, and the new world of righteousness and truth is here

America has been peopled by Europeans primarily because they expected in that country to make more money more easily.

It is a momentous thing to be the instrument, under Providence, of the liberation of a race.

The Pilgrims landed, worthy men, And saved from wreck on raging seas;, They fell upon their knees, and then Upon the aborigines.