Grover Cleveland Quotes

35 Sourced Quotes

I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose.
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government the Government should not support the people.

Grover Cleveland
Amid the din of party strife the people's choice was made, but its attendant circumstances have demonstrated anew the strength and safety of a government by the people. In each succeeding year it more clearly appears that our democratic principle needs no apology, and that in its fearless and faithful application is to be found the surest guaranty of good government.
But the best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen.

Grover Cleveland
The laws and the entire scheme of our civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness. Thus is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil polity — municipal, State, and Federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the Republic.

Grover Cleveland
The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.

Grover Cleveland
Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service.

Grover Cleveland
All must admit that the reception of the teachings of Christ results in the purest patriotism, in the most scrupulous fidelity to public trust, and in the best type of citizenship.

Grover Cleveland
Communism is a hateful thing, and a menace to peace and organized government.

Grover Cleveland
What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?

Grover Cleveland
Government resting upon the will and universal suffrage of the people has no anchorage except in the people's intelligence.

Grover Cleveland
I know that human prejudice - especially that growing out of race and religion - is cruelly inveterate and lasting.

Grover Cleveland
The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune.

Grover Cleveland
After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude, these laws are brought forth.

Grover Cleveland
Under our scheme of government the waste of public money is a crime against the citizen.

Grover Cleveland
A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities, and the
United States, in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.

Grover Cleveland
As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.

Grover Cleveland
The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.

Grover Cleveland
The broad rich acres of our agricultural plains have been long preserved by nature to become her untrammeled gift to a people civilized and free, upon which should rest in well-distributed ownership the numerous homes of enlightened, equal and fraternal citizens... Nor should our vast tracts of land be yielded up to the monopoly of corporations or grasping individuals, as appears to be much the tendency under the existing statute.

Grover Cleveland
The paramount duty of maintaining public order and defending the interests of our own people may require the adoption of measures of restriction, but they should not tolerate the oppression of individuals of a special race.

Grover Cleveland
At times like the present, when the evils of unsound finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuations of values; but the wage earner - the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction - is practically defenseless.

Grover Cleveland
I know there is a Supreme Being who rules the affairs of men and whose goodness and mercy have always followed the American people, and I know He will not turn from us now if we humbly and reverently seek His powerful aid.

Grover Cleveland
Loyalty to the principles upon which our Government rests positively demands that the equality before the law which it guarantees to every citizen should be justly and in good faith conceded in all parts of the land.

Grover Cleveland
I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality; that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one.

Grover Cleveland
The trusts and combinations—the communism of pelf—whose machinations have prevented us from reaching the success we deserved, should not be forgotten nor forgiven.

Grover Cleveland
And let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowledging the power and goodness of Almighty God, who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country's history, let us invoke His aid and His blessings upon our labors.

Grover Cleveland
In the scheme of our national government, the presidency is preeminently the people's office.

Grover Cleveland
The admitted right of a government to prevent the influx of elements hostile to its internal peace and security may not be questioned, even where there is not treaty stipulation on the subject.

Grover Cleveland
There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice

Grover Cleveland
I have considered the pension list of the republic a roll of honor.

Grover Cleveland
He mocks the people who proposes that the government shall protect the rich and that they in turn will care for the laboring poor.

Grover Cleveland
When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government.

Grover Cleveland