Quote #46

Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, 'This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!' But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.

More from John Adams

  1. Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.
  2. When people talk of the Freedom of Writing, Speaking, or thinking, I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now…
  3. We have now, it Seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James's Bible, through all Nations. Would it not be better to apply these…
  4. What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revoluti…
  5. I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved - t…
  6. I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation
  7. Power always sincerely, conscientiously, de tres bon foi, believes itself right. Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views, be…
  8. Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.

All John Adams quotes