Posted on 07/28/2013 3:56:13 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
A man whose wit was matched only by the looseness of his tongue, the combative John Adams quickly acquired a hefty reputation for articulate jabs and razor-sharp put-downs...
“His whole life has been one continued insult to good manners and to decency.”
“That bastard brat of a Scottish peddler! His ambition, his restlessness and all his grandiose schemes come, I'm convinced, from a superabundance of secretions, which he couldn't find enough whores to absorb!”
(Hamilton certainly wasn't above returning the fire.)
“What a poor, ignorant, malicious, crapulous mass.”
(For more on their relationship, head here.)
“That Washington is not a scholar is certain. That he is too illiterate, unlearned, unread for his station is equally beyond dispute.”
“Phyladelphia [sic], with all its trade and wealth and regularity, is not Boston. The morals of our people are much better; their manners are more polite and agreeable... Our language is better, our taste is better, our persons are handsomer; our spirit is greater, our laws are wiser, our religion is better, our education is better. We exceed them in every thing, but in a market.”
“His soul is poisoned with ambition.”
While working as a member of the American revolution's continental congress, Adams referred to one of his less-radical colleagues as “a piddling genius” in one of his letters—an insult which caused a good deal of uproar when the British intercepted and published the candid document. For a fictionalized account of the pair's tense relationship, check out this clip from HBO's 2008 John Adams miniseries:
(Excerpt) Read more at mentalfloss.com ...
It can mean “2. Excessive indulgence” which fits the crapulous masstard well. Look at his vacations.
Lol!
Correct. He preached the ideals of the revolution’ but failed to practice them once in power. And the reason why he hated Franklin is because Franklin accomplished more with the French to garner support, and the French simply disliked Adams even when he was there on French soil.
It should mean that everything that comes out of his mouth is excrement. Nothing could be more truthful than that.
All it takes if for us to start using it as such and voila`. This is the land of opportunity. Let’s try it out.
Did you hear bunghole barry’s last speech? It was a crapulous mass.
Of course not. What kind of such a mass ever forced you to buy a commercial service that you don't want?
Why not? Words mean whatever we infer them to!
The Naval action in the Chesapeake in 1781 was the only significant victorious battle in French naval annals.
Um, I read David McCullough’s “John Adams” (a fairly exhaustive work) and did not see a single one of these quotes.
Can anyone else corroborate?
Not sure about the authenticity of those John Adams’ quotes but I do know that he walked for miles and miles every day and he started each morning with a tankard of hard cider. He lived to be 91 which in those days was quite an accomplishment. Ironically he died the same day as Thomas Jefferson - on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1826). Certainly one of the strangest coincidences in our nation’s history.
John Adams, perhaps the original Rush Limbaugh. :)
Also a distant relative of Jane Fonda
...or just spouting off when he got drunk.
The original Andrew Dice Clay.
“Hickory, dickory, dock
Betsy was...”
Measure your mind by the shadow it creates? What am I supposed to do, it is almost always overcast here.
“America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.”
If these quotes are true, I think a lot less of him than I used to!
The Journal of William Maclay has a few choice insults about our Founders.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/hlaw:@field(DOCID+@lit(mj001T000)):
...John Adams has served to illustrate two points at least with me, viz., that a fool is the most unmanageable of all brutes, and that flattery is the most irksome of all service.
... I can, through this channel, communicate what I please to Madison; and I think I know him. But if he is led, it must be without letting him know that he is so; in other words, he must not see the string.
...Republicans are borne down by fashion and a fear of being charged with a want of respect to General Washington. If there is treason in the wish I retract it, but would to God this same General Washington were in heaven! We would not then have him brought forward as the constant cover to every unconstitutional and irrepublican act.
I’d give him the Don Rickles nod.
My favorite Founding Father bump.
I have seen wittier put-downs made by Freepers.
We have many, many talented Freepers!
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