October 9, 2008

Dad and I recently watched the “John Adams” series on television and recommend it to all. Kath and Alex gave us the DVDs and we’re watching it a second time. Because Dad’s read David McCulluogh’s book on John Adams he elaborated on his life as we watched. I love this quote from a letter Abigail Adams wrote to her son after a difficult and perilous journey with his father to Paris.

“These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”