If you have a due sense of your preservation, your next consideration will be, for what purpose you are continued in life.
It is not to rove from clime to clime, to gratify an idle curiosity; but every new mercy you receive is a new debt upon you, a new obligation to a diligent discharge of the various relations in which you stand connected; in the first place, to your great Preserver; in the next, to society in general; in particular, to your country, to your parents, and to yourself.
Abigail Adams, Letter to John Quincy Adams, 03-20-1780
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