John Witherspoon Quotes

Public virtue is the vital spirit of republics, and history proves that when this has decayed and the love of money has usurped its place, although the forms of the free government may remain for a season, the substance has departed forever.

The corruption of every government begins nearly always with that of principles.

When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

I foresee that man will resign himself each day to new abominations, and soon that only bandits and soldiers will be left.

Every form of government tends to perish by excess of its basic principle.

The moral fiber of the American people is beset by rot and decay

The age of virtuous politics is past.

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

Liberalism is exhausted because it has become a corruption.

Civilization is going down the drain, and the sooner it does, the better.

What we now have is the freedom which attends decadence, or the decadence which attends freedom.

A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

When I was reporting crime... I never had the sense of clockwork conspiracies or some kind of imposing order of evil. What I sensed was things just sort of falling apart.

All you got to do is look around. This country's getting worse and worse and more and more immoral, and we're rotting from within.

It is possible for great nations to rot from within.

You can still do the Big Lie in Miami and get away with it. This is a town where the basic institutions have collapsed.

A miserable politics awaits us when the irreligious rot flows downstream.

We're supposed to be becoming more evolved as a society, and we're actually becoming less evolved.

All political institutions will end sooner or later. The question is when and how.

Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

Wisdom degenerates in governments as governments increase in age.

We have lost morals, justice, honor, piety and faith, and that sense of shame which, once lost, can never be restored.