Adams-"If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God"

I believe in God and in his wisdom and benevolence, and I cannot conceive that such a Being could make such a species as the human merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This Universe, this all, this [totality] would appear with all its swelling pomp, a boyish firework.

John Adams, early 1800's, from a letter to Thomas Jefferson as quoted in "John Adams" by David McCullough, pages 625.

Adams-"If all religion and all morality should be over-thrown"

"If [the] empire of superstition and hypocrisy should be overthrown, happy indeed will it be for the world; but if all religion and all morality should be over-thrown with it, what advantage will be gained? The doctrine of human equality is founded entirely in the Christian doctrine that we are all children of the same Father, all accountable to Him for our conduct to one another, all equally bound to respect each other's self love."
John Adams, early 1800's, a comment he made about Mary Wollstonecraft's book "French Revolution" as quoted in "John Adams" by David McCullough, pages 619.

Its too bad the secularists of today feel that they created the doctrine of human equality and therefore we no longer need the "superstition" of religion to support an absolute morality. Like, somehow we can all make up our own relative morality and equality will somehow fall out of the resulting morass of arbitrary value systems. Talk about superstition!

Adams-"Go on and improve in everything worthy"

"Oh, that I am always be able to say to my grandsons, ' You have learned much and behave well, my lads. Go on and improve in everything worthy.' Have you considered the meaning of the word "worthy"? Weigh it well... I had rather you should be worthy possessors of one thousand pounds honestly aquired by your own labor and industry, than of ten millions by banks and tricks. I should rather you be worthy shoemakers than secretaries of states or treasury aquired by libels in newspapers. I had rather you should be worthy makers of brooms and baskets than unworthy presidents of the United States procured by intrigue, factious slander and corruption."
John Adams, 1812, an excerpt from a letter to his grandson John Smith quoted in "John Adams" by David McCullough, pages 608-609.

I hope to be able to say similar things to my sons and grandsons someday and I hope that they have similar feelings of what is "worthy".

Adams-"Our electioneering racers have started for the prize"

"Our electioneering racers have started for the prize. Such a whipping and spurring and huzzaing! Oh what rare sport it will be! Through thick and thin, through mire and dirt, through bogs and fens and sloughs, dashing and splashing and crying out, the devil take the hindmost."
"How long will it be possible that honor, truth or virtue should be respected among a people who are engaged in such a quick and perpetual succession of such profligate collisions and conflicts?"
John Adams, early 1800's, an excerpt from a letter to Benjamin Rush quoted in "John Adams" by David McCullough

As applicable today as ever. I'm sure most candidates for public office today do not respect honor, truth or virtue in their comments about their opponents.

Adams-"Is the present state of the national republic enough?"

"Is the present state of the national republic enough? Is virtue the principle of our government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice, adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thrist for riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the spirit of party and of faction the motive and principle that governs?"
John Adams, February 6, 1805, an excerpt from a letter to Benjamin Rush quoted in "John Adams" by David McCullough

These questions are as applicable today as they were when John Adams asked them in 1805. I have to admit that I often allow the "spirit of party" to influence my own thinking in regards to our nation's government, although, I try to maintain my views based on virtue as a guiding principle. I like to believe that President Bush feels the same way, but I do not have the same view of most of members of the Congress.