Letter to William Eustis http://books.google.com/books?id=S088AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA319 (22 June 1809), published in Writings of John Quincy, Adams (1914), The Macmillan company.
Variant: All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
“To believe all men honest is folly. To believe none is something worse.”
“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.”
The Philippine Star http://www.philstar.com/headlines/653601/review-plea-bargaining-agreement-garcia-enrile
2011
“I believe that almost all politicians are honest.”
This I Believe (1952)
Context: I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies.
Justice in War-Time (1916), p. 70
1910s
“Men believe the worst easily, and women believe it hides something still darker.”
Two Rivers saying
(15 October 1994)
“None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much.”
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), IV : The Essence of Catholicism
Context: ... as the great Unitarian preacher Channing pointed out, that in France and Spain there are multitudes who have proceeded from rejecting Popery to absolute atheism, because "the fact is, that false and absurd doctrines, when exposed, have a natural tendency to beget skepticism in those who receive them without reflection. None are so likely to believe too little as those who have begun by believing too much." Here is, indeed, the terrible danger of believing too much. But no! the terrible danger comes from another quarter — from seeking to believe with the reason and not with the life.
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
