Abigail Adams

Explore 5 quotes by Abigail Adams

These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.... Great necessities call out great virtues.

Abigail Adams

Letter to John Adams, 1780

Read this letter at the National Archives website

More information about this quote

Topic

Interesting times Benefits of adversity

Author

Abigail Adams

Source

Letter to John Adams, 1780 Letters of Abigail Adams

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1780 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Adams, Abigail. Letter to John Quincy Adams. 12 Jan. 1780.

Current Citation

Adams, Abigail. Quoted in John Adams, written by David McCullough. Simon and Schuster, 2001.

In the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could.

Abigail Adams

Read this letter at the Massachusetts Historical Society website

More information about this quote

Topic

Feminism Oppression of women Men and women Tyranny Exploration

Author

Abigail Adams

Source

Letters of Abigail Adams

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1776 1770s 18th century

Era

American Revolutionary Period

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Adams, Abigail. Letter to John Adams. 31 Mar. 1776.

Current Citation

Adams, Abigail. My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, edited by Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor. Belknap Press, 2010.

Patriotism in the female Sex is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honours and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Goverment from having held a place of Eminence...Yet all History and every age exhibit Instances of patriotick virtue in the female Sex; which considering our situation equals the most Heroick of yours.

Abigail Adams

Letter to John Adams, June 17, 1782

Read this letter at masshist.org

More information about this quote

Topic

Patriotism Oppression of women

Author

Abigail Adams

Source

Letter to John Adams, June 17, 1782 Letters of Abigail Adams

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1782 1780s 18th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Adams, Abigail. Letter to John Adams. 17 June 1782.

Current Citation

Adams, Abigail. Quoted in Abigail and John Adams: The Americanization of Sensibility, written by G. J. Barker-Benfield. University of Chicago Press, 2010, ch. 8.

Whilst you are proclaiming peace and good will to men, emancipating all nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over wives. But you must remember that arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken-and notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims we have it in our power not only to be free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without violence throw both your natural and legal authority at our feet.

Abigail Adams

Letter to John Adams, 1776

Read this letter at the National Archives website

More information about this quote

Topic

Oppression of women

Author

Abigail Adams

Source

Letter to John Adams, 1776 Letters of Abigail Adams

Medium

Letter

Statement Type

Threat Prophecies and predictions

Language

English

Time

1776 1770s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Adams, Abigail. Letter to John Adams. 7 May 1776.

Current Citation

Adams, Abigail. My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams, edited by Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor. Belknap Press, 2010.

It is really mortifying, sir, when a woman possessed of a common share of understanding considers the difference of education between the male and female sex, even in those families where education is attended to... Nay why should your sex wish for such a disparity in those whom they one day intend for companions and associates. Pardon me, sir, if I cannot help sometimes suspecting that this neglect arises in some measure from an ungenerous jealousy of rivals near the throne.

Abigail Adams

More information about this quote

Topic

Gender relations Oppression of women Men and women

Author

Abigail Adams

Source

Letters of Abigail Adams

Medium

Letter

Language

English

Time

1778 1770s 18th century

Era

American Revolutionary Period

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Adams, Abigail. Letter to John Thaxter. 15 Feb. 1778.

Current Citation

Adams, Abigail. "Letter to John Thaxter, 1778." The Adams Papers: The Adams Family Correspondence Volumes 1 & 2, edited by L. H. Butterfield. Anthenum, 1965.