“I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”

— John Quincy Adams

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to st…" by John Quincy Adams?

John Quincy Adams photo

John Quincy Adams 52

American politician, 6th president of the United States (in… 1767–1848

Related quotes

“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

Letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780)
1780s
Context: The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

“After logic we must proceed to philosophy proper. Here too we have to learn from our predecessors, just as in mathematics and law. Thus it is wrong to forbid the study of ancient philosophy. Harm from it is accidental, like harm from taking medicine, drinking water, or studying law.”

Averroes (1126–1198) Medieval Arab scholar and philosopher

Ch 1.9
The Decisive Treatise

“If teleological study of the world is philosophy, and if the Law commands such a study, then the Law commands philosophy.”

Averroes (1126–1198) Medieval Arab scholar and philosopher

FM 44 as cited in: Oliver Leaman (2002) An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy, p. 179
The Decisive Treatise

“Architectural History is more than just the study of buildings. Architecture of the past and the present remains an essential emblem of a distinctive social system and set of cultural values, and as a result it has been the subject of study of a variety of disciplines.”

Dana Arnold (1961) Middlessex uni prof

Source: Reading Architectural History (2002), Ch. 1 : Reading the past : What is architectural history?

“Some students of philosophy have unreasonably high expectations of the subject. They expect it to provide them with a complete and detailed picture of the human predicament. They think that philosophy will reveal to them the meaning of life, and explain to them every facet of our complex existences. Now, although studying philosophy can illuminate fundamental questions about our lives, it does not provide anything like a complete picture, if indeed there could be such a thing. Studying philosophy isn’t an alternative to studying art, literature, history, psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, and science.”

Nigel Warburton (1962) British author and lecturer

Philosophy : the basics (Fifth Edition, 2013), Introduction

“In 1995 we started our study of enterprise architecture – we just did not know it. At the time we thought we were studying information technology infrastructure transformations. In 1998 we thought we were studying enterprise system implementations. In 2000 it was e-business. But sometime in 2000, we recognized that each of these studies examined basically the same thing: Enterprise Architecture.”

Jeanne W. Ross (1958) American computer scientist

Source: Enterprise architecture as strategy, 2006, p. vii

“The adjective “political” in “political philosophy” designates not so much the subject matter as a manner of treatment; from this point of view, I say, “political philosophy” means primarily not the philosophic study of politics, but the political, or popular, treatment of philosophy, or the political introduction to philosophy—the attempt to lead qualified citizens, or rather their qualified sons, from the political life to the philosophic life.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

Source: What is Political Philosophy (1959), p. 93

“Profound study of nature is the most fertile source of mathematical discoveries.”

Joseph Fourier book The Analytical Theory of Heat

Source: The Analytical Theory of Heat (1878), Ch. 1, p. 7

“Can one understand politics without understanding history, especially the history of political thought, and will this distinguish political philosophy from some other kinds of philosophy (such as, perhaps, logic) to which the study of history is not integral?”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 38.

“If I had followed the multitude, I should not have studied philosophy.”

Chrysippus (-281–-208 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 182.

Related topics