John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life

The young John Quincy Adams begins it lifelong habit of keeping a journal with reluctance that he might one day have to read it. He hopes, though, that the flaws in his earlier entries will be balanced by the progress he is able to see.

I was born for a controversial world, and I cannot escape my destiny. John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams' depression was treated by his aunt with some reliable remedies, first sleep and then compassion. She said, " He was half cared for by having someone to care for him.

Amusement and annoyance are, perhaps, both forms of denial.

The president notices that when he takes off his coat to dig, people take more notice of the visual than they did his preceding remarks.

Foolish defiance was his lifelong response to being ill.

I date my decease, and consider myself, for every useful purpose to myself or to my fellow-creatures, dead; and hence I shall call this and what I may write hereafter a posthumous memoir.

An attraction for him was the natives’ habit of gathering after work, a custom that helped keep them warm and cheerful as they danced away what Johnny fetchingly called the “long white evenings.

My countenance in my old-age does injustice to my heart. John Quincy Adams

Adams met with a convention on keeping the Sabbath and found the atmosphere surprisingly similar to that in Congress. Legalistic disputes so abounded that he found it difficult to keep order.

The aging Adams delightedly describes being surrounded by books on so many different subjects that interested him as "baits on fishhooks".

The world shall retire from me before I shall retire from the world. John Quincy Adams

Our religion was the religion of a Book. Man must be educated on Earth for Heaven. John Quincy Adams

He had to pause for his usual misgivings.

It is the doom of the Christian church to be always distracted with controversy. John Quincy Adams

Adams was in a hurry and ordered his horse drawn carriage to wait for him in front of his house. The horses were spooked before he got in the carriage, and the carriage was destroyed in an accident. Pondering what could have happened to him , Adams retreated to Psalm 20's injunctions against trusting in chariots and horses.

Adams looks forward to teaching his granddaughters about planting trees, noting that they already show inclination toward this and need only be encouraged in the naturalist pursuits he has found so healthy.

Rather than pound or a national mind that he believed had been closed by his critics, John Quincy Adams decided to seek a place in the is the esteem of future generations.

John Quincy Adams, denying his sons permission to come home for college holidays for under-performance: "I would feel nothing but sorrow and shame at your presence.

I carry too much of the week into the Sabbath , and too little of the Sabbath into the week. John Quincy Adams

The author points out that, with life in provincial Washington difficult for those not of independent means, Adams and his wife undervalued the social connections that others found vital. They often made an impression as distant and prideful.

The two grappled in the quiet of old-fashioned personal diplomacy.

John Quincy Adams resolved to the discipline of rejecting argument for argument's sake would he sees that a fellow cabinet member is trying to draw him in to debating proposals the president will already reject.

Since chess was such a painful test of intellect, it affected his emotions too much to be sport.

Most ardent reformers are accompanied by but equal portion of dullness . John Quincy Adams

No sermon I have heard or read touched my heart with half the force of this puppet show. John Quincy Adams

Quite possibly, this depressive illness was the familiar sort that grew from perfectionist expectations.