32 Powerful Quotes By Abigail Adams That Reveal Her Mind
Abigail Adams was the wife and confidante of the second President of the United States, John Adams. She was also the mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States. She was the first Second Lady and second First Lady of the United States. Her correspondence with her husband on issues of politics and governance through letters is the most documented of all the First ladies. In these letters, she highlighted the need for women empowerment in the eighteenth century United States and abolition of Slavery, which she considered an evil that tarnished the American democratic model. According to historian Joseph Ellis, these letters indicated her resilient and intellectual personality. The passages from Abigail’s letters were also brought to life frequently in songs from the Broadway musical 1776. Laura Liney, while portraying Abigail in the mini HBO series ‘John Adams’, acknowledged her as a person with great passion who lived by the virtues of her own principles. We have curated some of Abigail Adams’ quotes from her writings, observations, letters and life. Here are some of the most enlightening quotes by Abigail Adams on education, learning, love, marriage, American Revolution, women, power, intelligence, belief, slavery, experience etc.
If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.
If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.
I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature and that power, whether vested in many or a few, is ever grasping, and like the grave, cries, 'Give, give.'
Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.
My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world.
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
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.
I hate to complain...No one is without difficulties, whether in high or low life, and every person knows best where their own shoe pinches.
We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them.
Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.
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.
The habits of a vigorous mind are born in contending with difficulties.
To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.
Its never to late to get back on your feet though we wont live forever make sure you accomplish what you were put here for
Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.
When he is wounded, I bleed. {page 262 of John Adams}
Remember the Ladies.
But let no person say what they would or would not do, since we are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.
My Dear Son... remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.
These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
Great necessities call out great virtues.
It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
Posterity who are to reap the blessings will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors.
We are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.
You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you, an inactive spectator....We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them
It is to me a most affecting thing to hear myself prayed for, in particular as I do every day in the week, and disposes me to bear with more composure, some disagreeable circumstances that attend my situation.
