John Adams Quotes

Liberty may be gained, but can never be recovered.

… the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.

Freedom is indivisible. As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.

We can see our liberties vanishing here in the United States... A little bit here and a little piece there... We can see it, we can feel it, and we can hear it.

No person that has enjoyed the sweets of liberty can be insensible of its infinite value, or can reflect on its reverse without horror and detestation

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

The government continues to erode our freedom.

Also, when you escape a Communist regime, you treasure liberty and you understand that as government and state expand, liberty must contract.

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it.

Our liberty cannot depend on the good intention of those in power.

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

I am a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country; and the least appearance of an encroachment on those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil exceedingly.

The most sensible and jealous people are so little attentive to government that there are no instances of resistance until repeated, multiplied oppressions have placed it beyond a doubt that their rulers had formed settled plans to deprive them of their liberties; not to oppress an individual or a few, but to break down the fences of a free constitution, and deprive the people at large of all share in the government, and all the checks by which it is limited.

Freedom can be destroyed, not just by its retraction, but also by its abuse.

If dictatorship is the concentration of power, freedom consists in its diffusion.

Liberty... is there only when there is no abuse of power.

Take the word Liberty from human speech and all the other words become poor, withered, meaningless sounds - but with that word realized - with that word understood, the world becomes a paradise.

Terrorists can only take my life. Only my government can take my freedom.

Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined-liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations.

In America, it is indispensable that every well wisher of true liberty should understand that acts of tyranny can only proceed from the publick. The publick, then, is to be watched, in this country, as, in other countries kings and aristocrats are to be watched.