The Internet document known as "History Forgotten" or "Forsaken Roots" misquotes the opening of this section as follows: "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supports."
1790s, Farewell Address (1796)
Context: Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity.
“Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.”
Source: 1920s, The Future of an Illusion (1927), Ch. 7
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Sigmund Freud 147
Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psycho… 1856–1939Related quotes
“A moral system valid for all is basically immoral.”
Generally attributed to Nietzsche, this is a quotation from Curtis Cate's Friedrich Nietzsche: A Biography (2003) and is the author's interpretation of Nietzsche's Aphorism 221 (Beyond Good and Evil)
Misattributed
“Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.”
Letter from St. Helena (28 August 1817); as quoted in The St. Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud, 1815-1818 : Being a Diary written at St. Helena during a part of Napoleon's Captivity (1932) as translated by Norman Edwards, a translation of Journal de Sainte-Hélène 1815-1818 by General Gaspard Gourgaud, t.2, p. 226
1940s–present, A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
“Fashion is neither moral or immoral, but it is for rebuilding the morale.”
“Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality.”
Testaments Betrayed (1995), p. 7
Context: Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel’s wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.