by Noah
Ulysses S. Grant did not have a crystal ball to see our sad present day. Instead he was a bright man who lived an incredibly intense life immersed in the dark side of human nature. That gave him the wisdom that he expressed in the quote in the above meme. He saw the very real possibility if not the likelihood. He saw the point we've reached today.
The quote comes from a speech Grant, who was then our president, gave in Des Moines, Iowa on September 29, 1875, almost 150 years ago. In his speech, he was being mindful of the upcoming centennial of our country's existence and spoke of the need for education and the separation of church and state in order to preserve the U.S. Constitution and therefore the country itself, things that way too many current American citizens would happily piss away.