“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!””
Letter to John Adams (27 November 1775)
Context: 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!” The great fish swallow up the small; and he who is most strenuous for the rights of the people, when vested with power, is as eager after the prerogatives of government. You tell me of degrees of perfection to which human nature is capable of arriving, and I believe it, but at the same time lament that our admiration should arise from the scarcity of the instances.
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Abigail Adams 40
2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801) 1744–1818Related quotes
“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.”
The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night (1885) Terminal Essay: Social Conditions, fn. 13.
Book VI, Chapter 7.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)
“War is like an actress, ever more dangerous and ever less photogenic”
Variant: Mama, the more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love.
Source: Sense and Sensibility
"You Bring Out the Best In Me", Gemilang, 2004
Song Quotations
“Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.”
8 May 1750
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
“Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh.”
Actually a quotation from a letter of Lord Chesterfield dated May 8, 1750.
Misattributed