“If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a theory.”
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, quoting a remark he had made in 1864.
1860s
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Jefferson Davis 44
President of the Confederate States of America 1808–1889Related quotes

Marginal note in his mathematical notebook (ca. 1826) as quoted by Øystein Ore, Niels Henrik Abel: Mathematician Extraordinary (1957)

Letter to his father (27 November 1861)
1860s
Context: My inclination is to whip the rebellion into submission, preserving all Constitutional rights. If it cannot be whipped any other way than through a war against slavery, let it come to to that legitimately. If it is necessary that slavery should fall that the Republic may continue its existence, let slavery go.
After all control and institutions and processes are immediate things. They can all be translated into terms of human conduct...
Source: The Institutional Approach to Economic Theory, 1919, p. 311-6

Section II: “What Is Progress?”, p. 47
1910s, The New Freedom (1913)

“When the snow fall
and the white winds blow,
the lone wolf dies
but the pack survives.”
Book A (sketchbook), p 9, c 1960: as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 50
1960s

James Anthony Froude, in the lecture "The Science of History" (5 February 1864); published in Representative Essays (1885) by George Haven Putnam, p. 274; Lord Acton quoted Froude in an address "The Study of History" (11 June 1895) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1906acton.html, which led to this being widely attributed to him. The phrase has also sometimes been misquoted as: Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral laws are written on the table of eternity.
Misattributed

"The Science of History", (5 February 1864); lecture published in Representative Essays (1885) by George Haven Putnam, p. 274; Lord Acton quoted the first sentence of this statement in an address "The Study Of History" (11 June 1895) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1906acton.html, and it has often since been misattributed to him. The phrase has also sometimes been misquoted as: Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral laws are written on the table of eternity.
Context: Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last.
Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 2, “Just a Theory: What Scientists Do” (p. 24)