Attributed, for example, by http://web.archive.org/20090806185021/www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/article.asp?parentid=2198, which contains a common version of the story, where Ferguson says this while holding a bible and defending her objection to the teaching of Spanish in Texas public schools
According to http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003084.html, a variation on this quote is reported in the New York Times on May 23, 1881, but no record of Ferguson having said this, or anything like it, could be found
This quote and variations on it are often frequently attributed to others; one story, usually heard outside the United States, has an unnamed "U.S. congressman" saying it in a television interview; for example, see http://ontrapranur.blogspot.com/2008/05/if-english-was-good-enough-for-jesus.html
Misattributed
“My reading of history has shown me that simply 'being a good man' is not enough. That there are many kings who are good men and yet bad kings. And even good kings sometimes make disastrous decisions. So government is complex, politics is complex.”
On a panel with R. Scott Bakker in Semana Negra, Spain (2008)
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George Raymond Richard Martin 35
American writer, screenwriter and television producer 1948Related quotes
Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)
“There has been a comparatively greater proportion of good queens, than of good kings.”
Letter 9 (August 25, 1837).
Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (1837)
Les hommes sont fort à plaindre d'avoir à être gouvernés par un roi, qui n'est qu'homme semblable à eux; car il faudroit des dieux pour redresser les hommes. Mais les rois ne sont pas moins à plaindre, n'étant qu'hommes, c'est-à-dire foibles et imparfaits, d'avoir à gouverner cette multitude innombrable d'hommes corrompus et trompeurs.
Bk. 10, p. 72; translation p. 174.
Les aventures de Télémaque (1699)
“Lordship for many is no good thing. Let there be one ruler,
one king.”
II. 204–205 (tr. R. Lattimore).
Iliad (c. 750 BC)