John Adams Quotes

There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.

Every government of the world has the seeds of its own destruction in itself.

As John Adams said, all democracies will eventually self-destruct. We seem to be doing it very quickly.

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

Modern political science started in the late nineteenth century as a branch of history.

It is a great pity but tis certain from every day's observation of man, that he may be set on fire like a candle, at either end provided there is a sufficient wick standing out.

Our works, whatever they may be, derive from our incapacity to kill or to kill ourselves.

How many wars have been caused by fits of indigestion, and how many more dynasties have been upset by the love of woman than by the hate of man.

Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable …

Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible.

Enormous monarchies are probably destructive to human nature in their progress, in their continuance and even in their own downfall.

The student of French history will recall three systems which have tried to deal with this admitted passion of the French people. The Bourbons crushed it; the Orleanists snubbed it; the Bonapartes deceived it.

Governments do not know what they cannot do until after they cease to be governments. Each government carries the seeds of its own destruction.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [...] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time.

All such men are, or ought to be, agreed, that simple governments are despotisms; and of all despotisms, a democracy, though the least durable, is the most violent.

Even if this advice to portfolio decision makers to drop dead is good advice, it obviously is not counsel that will be eagerly followed. Few people will commit suicide without a push. And fewer still will pay good money to be told to do what is against human nature and self-interest to do.

The worst that can happen under monarchy is rule by a single imbecile, but democracy often means the rule by an assembly of three or four hundred imbeciles.

The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.

Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.

To discover the rules of society that are best suited to nations, there would need to exist a superior intelligence, who could understand the passions of men without feeling any of them, who had no affinity with our nature but knew it to the full, whose happiness was independent of ours, but who would nevertheless make our happiness his concern, who would be content to wait in the fullness of time for a distant glory, and to labour in one age to enjoy the fruits in another. Gods would be needed to give men laws.

They think democracy - I used to say "damn the democracy", because it's not a stable government.

By privileges, immunities, or prerogatives to give unlimited swing to the passions of individuals, and then to hope that they will restrain them, is about as reasonable as to expect that the tiger will spare the hart to browse upon the herbage.

A democracy is ... accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government.