Charles Francis Adams, Sr.

In this country … men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy when they retire.

Charles Francis Adams (18 August 1807 – 21 November 1886) was an American lawyer, politician, diplomat and writer; the son of President John Quincy Adams and Louisa Catherine Johnson and the grandson of President John Adams and Abigail Adams.

Quotes

In this country … men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy when they retire.
- Diary entry (15 April 1836), as quoted in The Travellers' Dictionary of Quotation : Who Said What, About Where? (1983) by Peter Yapp, p. 862.

It would be superfluous in me to point out to your Lordship that this is war.
- Dispatch to John Russell at a period of diplomatic tensions between the US and Britain during the US Civil War (5 September 1863); more information on the significance of this statement is available at "The American Question Abroad in the Civil War"

More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example.
- As quoted in Washington's Birthday : Its History, Observance, Spirit, and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse (1918) by Robert Haven Schauffler, p. 143.

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