“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.”
John Adams letter to John Taylor, Of Caroline, Quincy, (12 March, 1819)
1810s, Letter to John Taylor (1819)
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John Adams 202
2nd President of the United States 1735–1826Related quotes

“Nobody has done more for Christianity or for evangelicals — or for religion itself — than I have.”
Quoted in "Donald Trump Claims Nobody Has Done More 'for Religion Itself' Than Him" https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-claims-nobody-has-done-more-religion-itself-him-1635036, Newsweek, 2 October 2021
2021, October 2021

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Statement at his trial, rejecting the assertion he was a traitor to Edward I of England (23 August 1305), as quoted in Lives of Scottish Worthies (1831) by Patrick Fraser Tytler, p. 279
Variant: I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject.
Context: I can not be a traitor, for I owe him no allegiance. He is not my Sovereign; he never received my homage; and whilst life is in this persecuted body, he never shall receive it. To the other points whereof I am accused, I freely confess them all. As Governor of my country I have been an enemy to its enemies; I have slain the English; I have mortally opposed the English King; I have stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed as his own. If I or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses or ministers of religion, I repent me of my sin; but it is not of Edward of England I shall ask pardon.

Letter to David Mundell (12 October 1848) in which Clay reflects upon his failure to win the Presidency.

Speech, (3 November 1952) as quoted in "The Graceful Loser" in TIME (23 July 1965) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,841890,00.html

Letter to Frederick Ayers (5 May 1943), published in The Patton Papers 1940-1945 (1996) edited by Martin Blumenson, p. 242
Context: The publicity I have been getting, a good deal of which is untrue, and the rest of it ill considered, has done me more harm than good. The only way you get on in this profession is to have the reputation of doing what you are told as thoroughly as possible. So far I have been able to accomplish that, and I believe I have gotten quite a reputation from not kicking at peculiar assignments.

“The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying”
"Science and Morals" (1886) http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/CE9/S-M.html
1880s
Context: The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying; to give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibilities of knowledge.

Source: 1970s, Take Today : The Executive as Dropout (1972), p. 109