Abigail Adams: Call

Abigail Adams was 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801). Explore interesting quotes on call.

Abigail Adams: 80 quotes 6 likes

“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

Personality

“Great necessities call forth great leaders.”

Abigail Adams

This seems to first appear in Why Leaders Can't Lead : The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues (1989) by Warren G. Bennis, p. 159, where it is cited as being from a letter to Thomas Jefferson, but it might be a misquote of "Great necessities call out great virtues" stated in a letter to her son John Quincy Adams (19 January 1780)
Disputed

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

Abigail Adams

Letter to John Adams (1 May 1780)

World

“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

Letter to John Quincy Adams (19 January 1780)

Animals , Life , Time , Heart

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

Abigail Adams

Wisdom