James A. Garfield Quotes

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.

The divorce between church and state should be absolute.

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

A law is not a law without coercion behind it.

The lesson of history is rarely learned by the actors themselves.

Ideas control the world.

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.

The right of private judgment is absolute in every American citizen.

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

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.

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

A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil.

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.

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

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

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.

He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.

Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.

There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States.

The people are responsible for the character of their Congress.

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

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

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

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

Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis.

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.

Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.

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

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

For honest merit to succeed amid the tricks and intrigues which are now so lamentably common, I know is difficult; but the honor of success is increased by the obstacles which are to be surmounted. Let me triumph as a man or not at all.

[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.

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

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.

[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.

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. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. . . . If the next centennial does not find us a great nation . . . it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.

Justice and goodwill will outlast passion.

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.

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.

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.