A collection of quotes by Abigail Adams on education, learning, love, marriage, American Revolution, women, power, intelligence, belief, slavery, experience etc.
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.
Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.
- Abigail Adams
A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world.
- Abigail Adams
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
- Abigail Adams
Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken.
- Abigail Adams
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.'
- Abigail Adams
Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.
- Abigail Adams
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
- Abigail Adams
If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.
- Abigail Adams
We are not judges for ourselves until circumstances call us to act.
- Abigail Adams
The theater has been called the pulse of the people.
- Abigail Adams
I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe.
- Abigail Adams
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
- Abigail Adams
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.
- Abigail Adams
Posterity who are to reap the blessings will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors.
- Abigail Adams
It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.
- Abigail Adams
My Dear Son... remember that you are accountable to your Maker for all your words and actions.
- Abigail Adams: Her Letters, Abigail Adams
Great necessities call out great virtues.
- Abigail Adams
Remember the Ladies.
- My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, Abigail Adams
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.
- Abigail Adams
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.
- Abigail Adams
When he is wounded, I bleed. {page 262 of John Adams}
- Abigail Adams
To be good, and do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words.
- Abigail Adams
Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.
- The Quotable Abigail Adams, Abigail Adams
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
- My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, Abigail Adams
The habits of a vigorous mind are born in contending with difficulties.
- 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
We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them.
- Abigail Adams
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.
- 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
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
- Abigail Adams
My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.
- Abigail Adams
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.
- The Letters of John and Abigail Adams, Abigail Adams
