“You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little,” he had told Caroline, in response to her quandary over the riddles of life. “The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know….Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough….So questions and so answers your affectionate grandfather.”

John Adams became more philosophical as he aged. Do we all?

McCullough, David. John Adams. Simon & Schuster, 2001.