“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.”

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 <br class="br">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 <br class="br">This quote and variations on it are often frequently attributed to others; one story, usually heard outside the United States, has an unnamed &quot;U.S. congressman&quot; saying it in a television interview; for example, see http://ontrapranur.blogspot.com/2008/05/if-english-was-good-enough-for-jesus.html <br class="br">Misattributed