Abigail Adams

We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

— Abigail Adams

I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in this province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me — to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.

— Abigail Adams

How difficult the task to quench the fire and the pride of private ambition, and to sacrifice ourselves and all our hopes and expectations to the public weal! How few have souls capable of so noble an undertaking! How often are the laurels worn by those who have had no share in earning them! But there is a future recompense of reward, to which the upright man looks, and which he will most assuredly obtain, provided he perseveres unto the end.

— Abigail Adams

The reins of government have been so long slackened, that I fear the people will not quietly submit to those restraints which are necessary for the peace and security of the community.

— Abigail Adams

I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.

— Abigail Adams

Shall we be despised by foreign powers for hesitating so long at a word?

— Abigail Adams

Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers, politicians, friends, lovers and husbands.

— Abigail Adams

It is really mortifying, sir, when a woman possessed of a common share of understanding considers the difference of education between the male and female sex, even in those families where education is attended to... Nay why should your sex wish for such a disparity in those whom they one day intend for companions and associates. Pardon me, sir, if I cannot help sometimes suspecting that this neglect arises in some measure from an ungenerous jealousy of rivals near the throne.

— Abigail Adams

I regret the narrow contracted education of the females of my own country.

— Abigail Adams

If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?

— Abigail Adams

Luxury, that baneful poison, has unstrung and enfeebled her sons.

— Abigail Adams

These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by the scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.

— Abigail Adams

A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world.

— Abigail Adams

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.

— Abigail Adams

I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.

— Abigail Adams

To be good, and to do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.

— Abigail Adams

I acknowledge myself a unitarian — Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father. … There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three.

— Abigail Adams

Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long.

— Abigail Adams

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.

— Abigail Adams

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.

— Abigail Adams

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.

— Abigail Adams

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

— Abigail Adams

I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic.

— Abigail Adams

Well, knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severely for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since.

— Abigail Adams

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

— Abigail Adams

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and diligence.

— Abigail Adams