James A. Garfield Quotes

110 Sourced Quotes

I have always said that my whole public life was an experiment to determine whether an intelligent people would sustain a man in acting sensibly on each proposition that arose, and in doing nothing for mere show or demagogical effect.

James A. Garfield
The world's history is a divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian — the humble listener — there has been a Divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come.

James A. Garfield
If there be one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another, it is a brave man — it is a man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.

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

James A. Garfield
Mister Speaker, I am not able to understand the mental organization of the man who can consider this bill, and the subject of which it treats, as free from very great difficulties. He must be a man of very moderate abilities, whose ignorance is bliss, or a man of transcendent genius, whom no difficulties can daunt and whose clear vision no cloud can obscure.

James A. Garfield
On Lincoln's assassination:
My fellow citizens, the President is dead, but the government lives and God omnipotent reigns.

James A. Garfield
His last words to his chief of staff, David G. Swaim:
Oh Swaim, there is a pain here. Swaim, can't you stop this? Oh, oh, Swaim!

James A. Garfield
Mister Speaker, we did more than merely to break off the chains of the slaves. The abolition of slavery added four million citizens to the Republic. By the decision of the Supreme Court, by the decision of the Attorney-General, by the decision of all the departments of our Government, those men made free are, by the act of freedom, made citizens. As another has said, they must be "four million disfranchised, disarmed, untaught, landless, thriftless, non-producing, non-consuming, degraded men, or four million land-holding, industrious, arms-bearing, and voting population. Choose between the two!"

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

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
I am about to assume the great trust which you have committed to my hands. I appeal to you for that earnest and thoughtful support which makes this Government in fact, as it is in law, a government of the people.
I shall greatly rely upon the wisdom and patriotism of Congress and of those who may share with me the responsibilities and duties of administration, and, above all, upon our efforts to promote the welfare of this great people and their Government I reverently invoke the support and blessings of Almighty God.

James A. Garfield
The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.

James A. Garfield
No American has carried greater fame out of the White House than this silent man who leaves it today.

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

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
Commerce links all mankind in one common brotherhood of mutual dependence and interests.

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
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
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
I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error.

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
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
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
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.

James A. Garfield