John Hay Quotes

22 Sourced Quotes

And I think that saving a little child,
And fotching him to his own,
Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around The Throne.

John Hay
Maidens! why should you worry in choosing whom you shall marry? Choose whom you may, you will find you have got somebody else.

John Hay
The best loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish Could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.

John Hay
Make all good men your well-wishers, and then, in the years' steady sifting, Some of them turn into friends. Friends are the sunshine of life.

John Hay
Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him, And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.

John Hay
It would never occur to most of us that 'plants' say anything at all, except in terms of what we read into them, or try to use them for. Yet in their responses to this wonderfully rhythmic and varying earth they are the most expressive of all forms of life.

John Hay
The use of proverbs is characteristic of an unlettered people. They are invaluable treasures to dunces with good memories.

John Hay
There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going, when they seem going they come: diplomats, women, and crabs.

John Hay
It has been a splendid little war, begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favoured by that fortune which loves the brave.
On the Spanish-American War of 1898

John Hay
Break not the rose; its fragrance and beauty are surely sufficient, resting contented with these, never a thorn shall you feel.

John Hay
A man reaches the zenith at forty, the top of the hill. From that time forward he begins to descend. If you have any great undertaking ahead, begin it now. You will never be so capable again.

John Hay
True luck consists not in holding the best of the cards at the table: Luckiest he who knows just when to rise and go home.

John Hay
Dealing with a government [Tsarist Russia] with whom mendacity is a science is an extremely difficult and delicate matter.

John Hay
He never funked and he never lied
I reckon he never knowed how.

John Hay
I'll hold her nozzle again the bank Till the last galoot's ashore.

John Hay
The people will come to their own at last,—
God is not mocked forever.

John Hay
At my door the Pale Horse stands
To carry me to unknown lands.

John Hay
The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.

John Hay
[The Spanish-American War] has been a splendid little war, begun with the highest motives, carried on with magnificent intelligence and spirit, favored by that Fortune that loves the brave. It is now to be concluded, I hope, with that fine good nature, which is, after all, the distinguishing trait of the American character.

John Hay
Speak with the speech of the world; think with the thoughts of the few.

John Hay
He weren't no saint—but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim.
'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing—
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

John Hay
I think that saving a little child
And bringing him to his own,
Is a derned sight better business
Than loafing around the throne.

John Hay