Governed, as we are, entirely by public opinion, the utmost care should be taken to preserve the purity of the public mind. Knowledge is power, and truth is knowledge; whoever, therefore, knowingly propagates a prejudice, willfully saps the foundation of his country’s strength.
Washington Irving, writing under the pseudonym “Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.,” The Sketch Book (1819), as excerpted in The American Scene: 1600–1860 (1964), William J. Chute, editor, p. 127.
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Washington Irving
