James A. Garfield Quotes & Sayings

Heroes did not make our liberties; they but reflected and illustrated them. — James A. Garfield

I am a poor hater. — James A. Garfield

He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation. — James A. Garfield

We are apt to be deluded into false security by political catch-words, devised to flatter rather than instruct. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

Talleyrand once said to the first Napoleon that the United States is a giant without bones. Since that time our gristle has been rapidly hardening. — James A. Garfield

The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think. — James A. Garfield

Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

Commerce links all mankind in one common brotherhood of mutual dependence and interests. — James A. Garfield

I will not vote against the truths of the multiplication table. — James A. Garfield

Individuals may wear for a time the glory of our institutions, but they carry it not to the grave with them. Like raindrops from heaven, they may pass through the circle of the shining bow and add to its luster; but when they have sunk in the earth again, the proud arch still spans the sky and shines gloriously on. — James A. Garfield

I am receiving what I suppose to be the usual number of threatening letters on the subject. Assassination can be no more guarded against than death by lightning; it is best not to worry about either. — James A. Garfield

Emember that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship. — James A. Garfield

Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real political issues of the day declare themselves, and come out of the depths of that deep which we call public opinion. — James A. Garfield

But for we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare ... are to be found portrayed in it. — James A. Garfield

In my judgment, while it is the duty of Congress to respect to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen ... not any ecclesiastical organization can be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the national government. — James A. Garfield

Justice and goodwill will outlast passion. — James A. Garfield

Men are tending to materialism. Houses, lands, and worldly goods attract their attention, and as a mirage lure them on to death. Christianity, on the other hand leads only the natural body to death, and for the spirit, it points out a house not built with hands, eternal in the heavens ... Let me urge you to follow Him, not as the Nazarene, the Man of Galilee, the carpenter's son, but as the ever living spiritual person, full of love and compassion, who will stand by you in life and death and eternity. — James A. Garfield

In the long, fierce struggle for freedom of opinion, the press, like the Church, counted its martyrs by thousands. — James A. Garfield

There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. — James A. Garfield

Right reason is stronger than force. — James A. Garfield

The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work relating to others. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government. — James A. Garfield

I have had many troubles in my life, but the worst of them never came. — James A. Garfield

[Science] is the literature of God written on the stars-the trees-the rocks-and more important because [of] its marked utilitarian character. — James A. Garfield

Great ideas travel slowly, and for a time noiselessly, as the gods whose feet were shod with wool. — James A. Garfield

I admitted, that the world had existed millions of years. I am astonished at the ignorance of the masses on these subjects. Hugh Miller has it right when he says that 'the battle of evidences must now be fought on the field of the natural sciences.' — James A. Garfield

I never meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling that i may owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under his coat. — James A. Garfield

I would rather believe something and suffer for it, than to slide along into success without opinions. — James A. Garfield

There are men and women who make the world better just by being the kind of people they are. They have the gift of kindness or courage or loyalty or integrity. It really matters very little whether they are behind the wheel of a truck or running a business or bringing up a family. The teach the truth by living it. — James A. Garfield

When the Divine Artist would produce a poem, He plants a germ of it in a human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and grows as from the rose-tree the rose. — James A. Garfield

[I]t would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of revenues of the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian schools. — James A. Garfield

Liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality. — James A. Garfield

To all our means of culture is added the powerful incentive to personal ambition, no post of honor is so high but the poorest may hope to reach it. — James A. Garfield

All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people. — James A. Garfield

When the shadow of the Presidential and Congressional election is lifted we shall, I hope to be in a better temper to legislate. — James A. Garfield

History is constantly repeating itself, making only such changes of programme as the growth of nations and centuries requires. — James A. Garfield

I believe in God, and I trust myself in His hands. — James A. Garfield

It is not right or manly to lie even about Satan. — James A. Garfield

Mankind have been slow to believe that order reigns in the universe-that the world is a cosmos and a chaos. — James A. Garfield

Tortured for the Republic. — James A. Garfield

The people are responsible for the character of their Congress. — James A. Garfield

History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy. — James A. Garfield

True art is but the anti-type of nature; the embodiment of discovered beauty in utility. — James A. Garfield

Swift defined observation to be an old man's memory. — James A. Garfield

It is not part of the functions of the national government to find employment for people and if we were to appropriate a hundred millions for this purpose, we should be taxing forty millions of people to keep a few thousand employed. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it. — James A. Garfield

If wrinkles must be written on our brow, let them not be written on our heart. The spirit should not grow old. — James A. Garfield

There are some things I am afraid of: I am afraid to do a mean thing. — James A. Garfield

Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up. — James A. Garfield

At present, the most valuable gift which can be bestowed upon women is something to do which they can do well and worthily, and thereby maintain themselves. — James A. Garfield

The divorce between Church and State ought to be absolute. It ought to be so absolute that no Church property anywhere, in any state or in the nation, should be exempt from equal taxation; for if you exempt the property of any church organization, to that extent you impose a tax upon the whole community. — James A. Garfield

In the minds of most men, the kingdom of opinion is divided into three territories,
the territory of yes, the territory of no, and a broad, unexplored middle ground of doubt. — James A. Garfield

A nation is not worthy to be saved if, in the hour of its fate, it will not gather up all its jewels of manhood and life, and go down into the conflict however bloody and doubtful, resolved on measureless ruin or complete success. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the cost of the conflict must be paid. — James A. Garfield

Ideas control the world. — James A. Garfield

No man can make a speech alone. It is the great human power that strikes up from a thousand minds that acts upon him, and makes the speech. — James A. Garfield

The best system of education is that which draws its chief support from the voluntary effort of the community, from the individual efforts of citizens, and from those burdens of taxation which they voluntarily impose upon themselves. — James A. Garfield

I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else. — James A. Garfield

Statistics has been the handmaid of science, and has poured a flood of light upon the dark questions of famine and pestilence, ignorance and crime, disease and death. — James A. Garfield

The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done all. The preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so successfully attained by the Administration of my predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought. — James A. Garfield

For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do every thing. — James A. Garfield

Coercion is the basis of every law in the universe,
human or divine. A law is not law without coercion behind it. — James A. Garfield

A law is not a law without coercion behind it. — James A. Garfield

The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other. — James A. Garfield

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained. — James A. Garfield

Whatever I may believe in theology, I do not believe in the doctrine of vicarious atonement in politics. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear, like owls and bats, before the light of day. — James A. Garfield

The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people. — James A. Garfield

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck. — James A. Garfield

The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law. — James A. Garfield

If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it. — James A. Garfield

We should do nothing for revenge, but everything for security: nothing for the past; everything for the present and the future. — James A. Garfield

There are times in the history of men and nations, when they stand so near the vale that separates mortals from the immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the beatings, and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite. — James A. Garfield

For the love of country they accepted death. — James A. Garfield

[It is possible] that the race of red men ... will, before many generations, be remembered only as a strange, weird, dream-like specter, which has passed once before the eyes of men, but had departed forever. — James A. Garfield

I found a kind of party terrorism pervading and oppressing the minds of our best men. — James A. Garfield

I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil. — James A. Garfield

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty. — James A. Garfield

Most human organizations that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. — James A. Garfield

Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it. — James A. Garfield

There is no horizontal stratification of society in this country like the rocks in the earth, that hold one class down below forevermore, and let another come to the surface to stay there forever. Our stratification is like the ocean, where every individual drop is free to move, and where from the sternest depths of the mighty deep any drop may come up to glitter on the highest wave that rolls. — James A. Garfield

The sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission. — James A. Garfield

They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

Ideas are the great warriors of the world, and a war that has no idea behind it, is simply a brutality. — James A. Garfield

The return to solid values is always hard ... Distress, panic, and hard times have marked our pathway in returning to solid values. — James A. Garfield

Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves. — James A. Garfield

I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error. — James A. Garfield

We hold reunions, not for the dead, for there is nothing in all the earth that you and I can do for the dead. They are past our help and past our praise. We can add to them no glory, we can give to them no immortality. They do not need us, but forever and forever more we need them. — James A. Garfield

The right of private judgment is absolute in every American citizen. — James A. Garfield

God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives! — James A. Garfield

A noble life crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth. — James A. Garfield

I love to deal with doctrines and events. The contests of men about men I greatly dislike. — James A. Garfield

It is a brave man ... who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil. — James A. Garfield