The New York Herald Tribune (31 March 1954)
Source: Confessions of a Mask (1949), p. 153.
Context: My "act" has ended by becoming an integral part of my nature, I told myself. It's no longer an act. My knowledge that I am masquerading as a normal person has even corroded whatever of normality I originally possessed, ending by making me tell myself over and over again that it too was nothing but a pretense of normality. To say it another way, I'm becoming the sort of person who can't believe in anything except the counterfeit.
Attributed in Shadow Kings (2005) by Mark Hill, p. 91; This and similar remarks are presented on the internet and elsewhere as an expression of regret for creating the Federal Reserve. The quotation appears to be fabricated from out-of-context remarks Wilson made on separate occasions:
I have ruined my country.
Attributed by Curtis Dall in FDR: My Exploited Father-in-Law, regarding Wilson's break with Edward M. House: "Wilson … evidenced similar remorse as he approached his end. Finally he said, 'I am a most unhappy man. Unwittingly I have ruined my country.'"
A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit.…
"Monopoly, Or Opportunity?" (1912), criticizing the credit situation before the Federal Reserve was created, in The New Freedom (1913), p. 185
We have come to be one of the worst ruled… Governments….
"Benevolence, Or Justice?" (1912), also in The New Freedom (1913), p. 201
The quotation has been analyzed in Andrew Leonard (2007-12-21), " The Unhappiness of Woodrow Wilson https://www.salon.com/2007/12/21/woodrow_wilson_federal_reserve/" Salon:
I can tell you categorically that this is not a statement of regret for having created the Federal Reserve. Wilson never had any regrets for having done that. It was an accomplishment in which he took great pride.
John M. Cooper, professor of history and author of several books on Wilson, as quoted by Andrew Leonard
Misattributed
Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968), Ch. 10 : The Scroll Marked III, p. 66.
“I will say no more, than that I will act as I shall answer hereafter to God and to man.”
After his wedding ceremony, on marrying his second wife, who was a Lutheran, as quoted in William the Silent (1897) by Frederic Harrison, p. 32
I never said that.
Interview with Roger Ebert in Esquire magazine (7 March 1972); more on this at Snopes.com: "I Love My Cigar" http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/grouchocigar.asp
