"The past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present was itself founded on some past that went before it."
- Madame de Stael
"Had I been chosen president again I am certain I could not have lived another year."
- John Adams
"The four most miserable years of my life . . ."
"Happiness is a tide: it carries you only a little way at a time but you have covered a vast space before you know that you are moving at all."
- Mary Adams
"The distance doesn't matter only the first step is difficult."
- Madame Marquise du Deffand
"No one means all he says and yet very few say all they mean."
- Henry Adams
"Too much truth Is uncouth."
- Franklin P. Adams
"By becoming more unhappy we sometimes learn how to be less so."
- Madame Swetchine
"Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things which differ and the difference of things which are alike."