The source has been updated. More of the quote here: "Money and not morality is the principle of commerce and commercial nations... Justice, honor, faith, must yield to the necessity of keeping themselves in place. The question whether a measure is moral is never asked, but whether it will nourish the avarice of their merchants, or the piratical spirit of their navy, or produce any other effect which may strengthen them in their places... This is the true character of [such governments] in practice, however different [their] theory; and it presents the singular phenomenon of a nation, the individuals of which are as faithful to their private engagements and duties, as honorable, as worthy, as those of any nation on earth, and whose government is yet the most unprincipled [ever] known."

We categorize quotes in our database as 'Questionable' or 'False' if we have evidence that the quote merits it. This quote has been categorized as 'Questionable.' We cannot possibly email everyone in our list every time we categorize a quote. This is a research tool, please do your own due diligence -- your comments certainly warn people enough of accepting this quote as authentic. That is enough for us. Thank you.

Thank you, Denis. It does appear that this popular quote may be false. We have updated the source info and will continue to research the history of this quote.

J Carlton, Woodrow Wilson wrote in his book The New Freedom: "Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U.S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." See http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Woodrow.Wilson.Quote.B249

It is thanks to our subscribers that the 'veracity' of our quotes is maintained. Thank you for your feedback regarding this quote. We will tag it 'questionable' while we investigate and if it is proven false we will tag it so. Thanks again.

Thanks for the excellent recommendations, Dick. Cheers.

The first paragraph of the quote is found in Woodrow Wilson's book written in 1913, The New Freedom: A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People, chapter 8. The 2nd paragraph is found in chapter 9: http://books.google.com/books?id=fiESAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA201 We have not yet found a confirmed source for the "I have betrayed my country" quote -- that is why it is in parenthesis with a note.

Thanks, anon, but it is 'creed.' See The Road to Serfdom, pg 73:
http://books.google.com/books?id=eTve6XEUbYIC&pg=PA73

Logan, I keep pretty busy just keeping the spam off the site and moderating you guys. :-) I was recently accused by one of the bloggers here that I was a fraud and was secretly Waffler trying to keep people interested in the site!! I can assure you, Waffler is all too real, and may I say a welcome contributor to the site. I get my say by picking the quotes. When we first started the daily mailing, I included some of my comments with each day's quotes -- after a good bit of hate mail, I stopped. We are planning to open up an op-ed section for posting articles and editorials for deeper introspection. Thanks to you all for the value you add to the site by your thoughtful comments!

Hey, Robert. Welcome back! Just because you changed email address doesn't mean you have to change your blogging alias here. I suggest you keep using RobertSRQ since we know you that way. Cheers! -Eric

Thank you, jim see. The quote has been tagged as questionable, and the source information has been updated.

This is only half the quote -- the other half repeats the phrase with 'merciful' instead of 'merciless.'

Yes, John, the quote is already categorized as False -- see title above.

We quote from all sides, True Freedom Fighter, and as has been said many times, we do not necessarily agree with the quotes but present them as food for thought. Thanks for commenting, and if there are some quotes you would like us to send out that better express your ideas of freedom, please do send them to us. We've been picking out quotes every day since the year 2000, and we are open to suggestions (we do not have even one quotation from Rush Limbaugh in our database, so I am not sure what you are talking about). As a 'True Freedom Fighter,' I look forward to some of your own favourites. We've updated Liddy's bio and included 'convicted Watergate burglar' in case there was anyone here that didn't already know that -- should we add 'nut case,' too? '-) We'll leave that for others to decide. Cheers!

It may be a misquote but not 'blatantly' so. Give us the source, Manny, and we will be happy to make the correction. Thanks.

With the US elections coming up, it is understandable that commenters will apply quotes to current events. But to keep the quotes comments more toward the quotes, we will create another area on this web site for discussions. This section is long overdue, and it seems a good time to launch it. We will likely 'grab' a few choice comments from the quotes to continue the threads. Cheers.

Thanks, Anonymous, we have updated our database with Buckley's year of death. Cheers.

Thanks, Jack from Brussels. The quote has been updated. Cheers.

It seems every few months it becomes necessary to remind our commentators to keep their comments to the current quote. We also ask that no one person attempt to dilute the comments with 2 to 3 posts for every 1 of another's posts. And please do not post under different aliases. We welcome intelligent debate especially when it stays on topic. Off-topic comments without ratings are removed. Thank you, Eric Schaub,

Anonymous, Here is the link to a photocopy of the page from Wilson's book, page 201: http://books.google.com/books?id=fiESAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA201
Actually, Salon has got it wrong -- it has incorrectly quoted from the book -- in particular the last sentence.

Thanks, Henry. We have now tagged this quote as False after a bit more research. We will keep it in the database, though, as it is a popular quote on the Internet, and we will attest to its being misattributed. Thanks, everyone, your efforts help keep this database accurate.

Barry & Chris, Thanks for your feedback on the web site. You must be new subscribers. In our welcome email we mentioned that we quote from all sides, and that we do not necessarily agree with whom we quote. Quotes about limiting freedom are as relevent to Liberty as those that profess freedom. Stick around.

Sorry, Dave. Our servers check for previous posts for Anonymous bloggers and replace their name. This helps prevent multiple posts from the same person using different aliases. Since you often include links to your web site in your posts, your anonymity seems unnecessary. You make good arguments, so I would ask that you use your name so that people can address your comments. Thanks.

Waffler, please stay on topic. Put your debate about democracy under a quote that is about that, please.

Thanks for the link, Mark. In the transcript, Ron Suskind says, "What Cheney does at that moment is say that we will probably have to be a country ruled by men rather than laws in this period." We will dig further to see if this is a direct quote, paraphrase, or opinion.