“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.”
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Samuel Adams 57
American statesman, Massachusetts governor, and political p… 1722–1803Related quotes

“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.”
Of Cunning
Essays (1625)

Robert Barton, Acting: Onstage and Off (2009), p. 160
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1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Source: The Papers Of George Washington
Context: Nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.

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Auxiliaries to the Perception of Intelligible Natures
Context: Things essentially incorporeal, because they are more excellent than all body and place, are every where, not with interval, but impartibly.
Things essentially incorporeal are not locally present with bodies but are present with them when they please; by verging towards them so far as they are naturally adapted so to verge. They are not, however, present with them locally, but through habitude, proximity, and alliance.
Things essentially incorporeal, are not present with bodies, by hypostasis and essence; for they are not mingled with bodies. But they impart a certain power which is proximate to bodies, through verging towards them. For tendency constitutes a certain secondary power proximate to bodies.

E. C. Mossner, Life of David Hume (Clarendon Press, 2001), p. 311.