Admire and adore the Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to lessen ill, and increase good, but never assume to comprehend.
John AdamsRead
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes that a moral and religious populace is essential for upholding the Constitution effectively.
John Adams suggests that the U.S. Constitution is particularly suited to a society grounded in moral and religious values. Without these foundational principles, he implies that the Constitution may fail to govern effectively, highlighting the interdependence of ethics and governance within a political framework.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for ethical leadership in governance.
Admire and adore the Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to lessen ill, and increase good, but never assume to comprehend.
Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.
Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.
The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in states as well as individuals.
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
I don't have to write about the future. For most people, the present is enough like the future to be pretty scary.
Holiness has nothing to do with what we know and everything to do with Who we know.
It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on the part of those who want to make human ability the measure of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand.
Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.
The American elite is almost beyond redemption. . . . Moral relativism has set in so deeply that the gilded classes have become incapable of discerning right from wrong. Everything can be explained away, especially by journalists. Life is one great moral mush--sophistry washed down with Chardonnay. The ordinary citizens, thank goodness, still adhere to absolutes.... It is they who have saved the republic from creeping degradation while their 'betters' were derelict.
The concept of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.
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