I have just finished reading David McCullough's masterful John Adams, and here is another lovely quotation, from page 625, written to Thomas Jefferson in 1818, after Adam's wife Abigail's death:
"I believe in God and in his wisdom and benevolence, and I cannot conceive that such a Being could make such a species as the human merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This universe, this all, this to pan [he wrote in Greek, which McCullough translates as "totality"] would appear with all its swelling pomp, a boyish firework."
And on page 630, another quotation, written in 1820, offers pithy advice:
"Admire and adore the Author of the telescopic universe, love and esteem the work, do all in your power to lessen ill, and increase good, but never assume to comprehend."
And again, also in 1820:
"I never delighted much in contemplating commas and colons, or in spelling or measuring syllables, but now . . . if I attempt to look at these little objects, I find my imagination, in spite of all my exertions, roaming in the Milky Way, among the nebulae, those mighty orbs, and stupendous orbits of suns, planets, satellites, and comets, which compose the incomprehensible universe; and if I do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, I feel an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees, in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs, and the benevolence that sanctifies this wonderful whole."
And finally, on page 650, in an undated quote from a letter he wrote to his granddaughter Caroline Amelia Smith:
"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. . . . Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough."
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