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About this quote

What does it mean?
Adams asserts that democracy inevitably collapses, consuming itself through waste and exhaustion.
In plain terms
He claims democracy always ends in self‑destruction.
What can you take from it?
Democratic systems risk self‑inflicted decline.

Where it applies

  • political analysis
  • historical cycles

Putting it to work

  • monitoring institutional health
  • reforming democratic processes

Questions to consider

  • What safeguards prevent democratic collapse?
  • How do we differentiate healthy change from decay?

Another view

Many democracies have endured and adapted over centuries.

More from John Adams

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  2. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Rom…

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  3. Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics,…

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