I finished reading “John Adams” this morning. I found it to be very well-written, if decidedly biased for its protagonist, though that is par for the course. A few bullet points:

+ That James Callender was a real piece of work. Why did it take so long for someone to murder him? Okay we don’t know definitively if he was murdered, but really. No one would be surprised.

+ The quotation in the title of this post is by Epictetus, a Greek stoic philosopher — Adams alludes to it when sometimes wishing he had been a shoemaker like his father. It is a most profound thought for these, and all, times.

+ “If worthless men are sometimes at the head of affairs, it is, I believe, because worthless men are at the tail and the middle.” It’s almost as though there have been evil tyrants gaining (and losing) control throughout all of human history!

+ Regarding his wife Abigail and her accomplishments and merit: “Whenever complimented about John Quincy and his role in national life, and the part he had played as a father, Adams would say with emphasis, ‘My son had a mother!'” Ok so he wasn’t all bad.

+ I enjoyed that he spent his final years reading and writing letters, which was exactly what he wanted to be doing. And I also enjoyed that he filled the margins of his books with comments about the text, often arguing with or scolding the author.

+ Thomas Jefferson sold his entire book collection to the Library of Congress after the war of 1812, when the country’s library had been burned by the British. He did it for posterity, but also because he was deeply in debt and needed the money. He sure loved to cultivate this image of himself as a simple humble farmer, yet he spent his money on extravagances and died in debt to the tune of $100k. In his will he freed the five slaves that were probably his children. The rest of his 130 slaves went on the auction block. The more I read about him the more I loathe him.