“If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?”
Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)
Letter to John Thaxter (29 September 1778)
“Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.”
Last update June 3, 2021. History
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Henry David Thoreau385
1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862Related quotes
“If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?”
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
Abigail Adams, his wife, in a letter to John Thaxter (1778-09-29).
Misattributed
Chapman Cohen (1868–1954) British atheist and secularist writer and lecturer
p. 96 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89009314162&view=1up&seq=100 <br class="br">Determinism or Free-will? (1912)
“Books let us into their souls and lay open to us the secrets of our own.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer
"The Sick Chamber," The New Monthly Magazine (August 1830), reprinted in Essays of William Hazlitt, selected and edited by Frank Carr (London, 1889)
Source: Essays of William Hazlitt: Selected and Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by Frank Carr
Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary
Respect For Things (page 81)
Not Always So, practicing the true spirit of Zen (2002)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)
1960s, Civil Rights Bill signing speech (1964)