WIST

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
(Attributed)

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
(Attributed)

To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
(Attributed)

La molesse est douce, et sa suite est cruelle.  

[Idleness is sweet, and its consequences are cruel.]

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
(Attributed)

Said to have been written in his diary, but unverified.

The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
(Attributed)

Whoever increases his knowledge, multiplies the uses to which he is enabled to turn the gift of his Creator.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
House Report 181 (19 Jan 1836)

Recommending the approval of the Smithsonian Institution by Congress.

Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force …. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
Independence Day Address, Washington, DC (4 Jul 1821)

I cannot ask of heaven success, even for my country, in a cause where she should be in the wrong. Fiat justitia, pereat coelum. My toast would be, may our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
Letter to John Adams (1 Aug 1816)
In response to Stephen Decatur's quote (and subsequent popular catch phrase), "Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong." The Latin translates as, "Let justice be done though heaven should fall."