“The past after all is only another name for someone else's present.”

“Adams lay peacefully, his mind clear, by all signs. Then late in the afternoon, according to several who were present in the room, he stirred and whispered clearly enough to be understood, "Thomas Jefferson survives.”

“Nobody ever lived in the past.”

“Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.”

“Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society.”

“No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."(The Course of Human Events, NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)”

“What was surprising--and would largely be forgotten as time went on--was how well Adams had done. Despite the malicious attacks on him, the furor over the Alien and Sedition Acts, unpopular taxes, betrayals by his own cabinet, the disarray of the Federalists, and the final treachery of Hamilton, he had, in fact, come very close to winning in the electoral count. With a difference of only 250 votes in New York City, Adams would have won an electoral count of 71 to 61. So another of the ironies of 1800 was that Jefferson, the apostle of agrarian America who loathed cities, owed his ultimate political triumph to New York.”