Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
44
AUTHOR:
John Adams (1735–1826)
QUOTATION:
But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow. It is like a large Fleet sailing under Convoy. The fleetest Sailors must wait for the dullest and slowest. Like a Coach and six—the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
ATTRIBUTION:
JOHN ADAMS, letter to Abigail Adams, June 11/June 17, 1775.—Adams Family Correspondence, ed. L. H. Butterfield, vol. 1, p. 216 (1963).
