"Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!"" - Meaning and context.">
John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail was here expressing his impression of what Washington seemed to be thinking after Adams was inaugurated as President. These impressions have sometimes been quoted as if they were something Washington had actually said to Adams. Quoted in A History of the United States and Its People: From Their Earliest Records to the Present Time (1904) by William Abbatt and Elroy McKendree Avery, p. 177; John Adams (2002) by David G. McCullough, p. 469; and The Portable John Adams (2004) edited by John Patrick Diggins, p. xi
• Unsourced variants: Well, I am fairly out and you are fairly in. Now we shall see who enjoys it the most!
Ah! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!
“

A solemn scene it was indeed... He seemed to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him think, "Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!"

— George Washington

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "A solemn scene it was indeed... He seemed to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him think, "Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!"" in the context of "John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail was here expressing his impression of what Washington seemed to be thinking after Adams was inaugurated as President. These impressions have sometimes been quoted as if they were something Washington had actually said to Adams. Quoted in A History of the United States and Its People: From Their Earliest Records to the Present Time (1904) by William Abbatt and Elroy McKendree Avery, p. 177; John Adams (2002) by David G. McCullough, p. 469; and The Portable John Adams (2004) edited by John Patrick Diggins, p. xi
• Unsourced variants: Well, I am fairly out and you are fairly in. Now we shall see who enjoys it the most!
Ah! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: Wikiquote: "George Washington" (Misattributed: Statements originally made by others, that have become wrongly attributed to Washington ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed February 05, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#George Washington#fairly#methought#happiest#triumph#solemn#indeed#seemed#scene#enjoy#heard
George Washington

About George Washington

George Washington (22 February 1732 – 14 December 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Second Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army in June 1775, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and then served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which drafted and ratified the Constitution of the United States and established the American federal government. Washington has thus been called the "Father of his Country".