James A. Garfield Quotes
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I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured.
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True art is but the anti-type of nature; the embodiment of discovered beauty in utility.
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The return to solid values is always hard... Distress, panic, and hard times have marked our pathway in returning to solid values.
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Monuments may be builded to express the affection or pride of friends, or to display their wealth, but they are only valuable for the characters which they perpetuate.
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There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States.
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History is philosophy teaching by example, and also warning; its two eyes are geography and chronology.
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I have had many troubles in my life, but the worst of them never came.
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If wrinkles must be written on our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.
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I found a kind of party terrorism pervading and oppressing the minds of our best men.
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..remember that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship.
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Whatever I may believe in theology, I do not believe in the doctrine of vicarious atonement in politics.
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He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.
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Wherever a ship ploughs the sea, or a plough furrows the field; wherever a mine yields its treasure; wherever a ship or a railroad train carries freight to market; wherever the smoke of the furnace rises, or the clang of the loom resounds; even in the lonely garret where the seamstress plies her busy needle--there is industry.
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The sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.
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The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.
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The right of private judgment is absolute in every American citizen.
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Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.
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The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of the national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.
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Power exhibits itself under two distinct forms,--strength and force,--each possessing peculiar qualities, and each perfect in its own sphere. Strength is typified by the oak, the rock, the mountain. Force embodies itself in the cataract, the tempest, and the thunder-bolt.
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Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
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Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.
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Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.
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Suicide is not a remedy
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Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.
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It is the high privilege and sacred duty of those now living to educate their successors and fit them, by intelligence and virtue, for the inheritance which awaits them.
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Liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality.
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Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves.
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The chief instrument of American statistics is the census, which should accomplish a two-fold object. It should serve the country by making a full and accurate exhibit of the elements of national life and strength, and it should serve the science of statistics by so exhibiting general results that they may be compared with similar data obtained by other nations.
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I would rather believe something and suffer for it, than to slide along into success without opinions.
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Tortured for the Republic.
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James A. Garfield
- Born: November 19, 1831
- Died: September 19, 1881
- Occupation: 20th U.S. President
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