John Ferling Quotes

Mr. Adams, by your Name I conclude you are descended from the first Man and Woman. . . . [Perhaps] you could resolve a difficulty which I could never explain. I never could understand how the first couple found the Art of lying together?" Adams must have been mortified. He blushed but stammered cleverly, or so he remembered, that the first couple surely "flew together . . . like two Objects in electric Experiments." "Well," the lady responded, "I know not how it was, but this I know, it is a very happy Shock."21

Adams's proclivity for truculence and curtness probably emerged early. Uncertain of his abilities and laboring under an exaggerated sense of inadequacy, he probably fashioned such an aggressive manner as a defense mechanism.

Fame had been democratized. During most of history only members of the privileged classes had possessed a realistic opportunity to achieve majestic fame, but in the eighteenth century it has been demonstrated repeatedly, by men such as Franklin, for instance, that fame might be achieved by men born into a lesser social rank.

For leaders, wars are filled with guesses.

and a campfire for illumination. Usually a slow writer - he

The surface causes of Adams's anxieties are not difficult to discern. Every activist knew the penalty for treason. Every congressman knew that prison, perhaps death, would be his reward if the American rebellion failed.

If that was not enough, Franklin also kept his exhausted younger cohort awake far into the night with an interminable disquisition on colds.

Britain's decision to send troops to the city did more to change the thinking of Bostonians than any step previously taken by London.

Empires exist for the benefit of the parent state. That, and the fact that the colonists eventually came to appreciate this truth, goes a long way toward explaining the origins of the American Revolution. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the authorities in London, the seat of Great Britain's empire,

Alexander Hamilton reflected as early as the middle of the Revolutionary War that rallying at the last minute was part of the national character of his countrymen.

He was convinced that public service and private misery were inextricably linked.

Jefferson was the rare student who came to college already knowing that there could be joy in studying.

Gates should have exceeded Washington as a military leader. He had long experience in a professional army and was more loved by his men. But Washington's character was superior to that of his rival, and it made him a great man, whereas Gates was merely a good soldier.

Jefferson attributes to a college professor and mentor his lifelong habit of questioning conventional wisdom.

The author distinguishes George Washington's leadership from that of another aristocratic general whose temperament was somewhat cold. Unlike him, Washington made the effort to at least appear to suffer with his troops.

Adams had little experience working with others in a legislative setting, and his obdurate manner and natural impatience did not fully suit him for such an undertaking. Yet, his courtroom skills and his pluck or "pertness," as he referred to it, served him well. Mostly, however, Adams's star rose because of other factors. The very force of his intellect was crucial to his emergence as an important force in Congress. At each step of his ascent, Adams's acuity and his imposing intellectual grasp had impressed others.

Jefferson reflected, "I think of her (a college infatuation) perhaps too much for my peace of mind. " Nevertheless, he was robbed of his considerable verbal powers when he got the chance to speak to the object of his affections.

There are always those who wish to sanitize war by portraying its grand and noble deeds-which sometimes occur-while drawing a veil over its shameless side. By its nature, war is harsh, brutal, and pitiless, and while it can call out the best in humankind, it can also awaken the darkest side of human nature, arousing in many participants a coldhearted callousness. For most, danger begets fear. For some, fear sires ferocity, and ferocity spawns a ruthlessness that subsumes compassion. For still other men, more than is gratifying to acknowledge, soldiering is a license to unleash iniquitous qualities that they struggled to suppress in peacetime.

The last officer named was Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island; a man of limited education and military experience limited to two years of peacetime militia duty, he nevertheless was destined to be the best of the lot.27

It was anything but reassuring to have to tell one's wife, in "Case of real Danger . . . fly to the Woods with our Children.

The feelings of politicians are rarely transparent.

The author characterizes Hamilton's tone in the Federalist papers by saying that he never spoke of problems but of being at the last stage in the crisis.

Wanting to change only the British position at the top of the American social structure, John Adams feared that a "rage for innovation" would consume what was worthwhile about American culture.

One thing is certain, however; whereas it has been almost commonplace among historians to attribute Adams's opposition to Franklin's style of diplomacy to simple jealousy, in fact Adams also was critical of his fellow envoy because of a genuine concern that America might be ruined by anything less than a wary, coequal, unbending relationship with its new ally.38

Jefferson subsequently came to believe that Henry's speech attacking the Stamp Act had been "the dawn of the Revolution."36