James A. Garfield: Trending quotes

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James A. Garfield: 258 quotes2 likes

“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

1880s, Garfield's Words (1882)

“If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.”

James A. Garfield

Letter to Colonel A. F. Rockwell (13 August 1866)
1860s

“We want a man whose life and opinions embody all the achievements of which I have spoken. We want a man who, standing on a mountain height, traces the victorious footsteps of our party in the past, and, carrying in his heart the memory of its glorious deeds, looks forward prepared to meet the dangers to come. We want one who will act in no spirit of unkindness toward those we lately met in battle.”

James A. Garfield

1880s, Speech Nominating John Sherman for President (1880)

“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

1880s, Garfield's Words (1882)

“History is philosophy teaching by example, and also warning; its two eyes are geography and chronology.”

James A. Garfield

This quote was already published in 1853 http://books.google.com/books?id=LM0QVhkWKrcC&pg=PA129&dq=%22two+eyes+are+geography+and+chronology.%22#v=onepage&q=%22two%20eyes%20are%20geography%20and%20chronology.%22&f=false, when Garfield was only 22. <br class="br">Misattributed

“In order to win victory now, we want the vote of every Republican — of every Grant Republican, and every anti-Grant Republican, in America — of every Blaine man and every anti-Blaine man. The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to make success certain. Therefore I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall do.”

James A. Garfield

1880s, Speech Nominating John Sherman for President (1880)

“The House has today resolved to enter upon a revolution against the Constitution and Government of the United States… [N]othing less than the total subversion of this government.”

James A. Garfield

1870s, Speech (1879)

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

James A. Garfield

1880s, Garfield's Words (1882)

“There never can be a convention… that shall bind my vote against my will on any question whatever.”

James A. Garfield

Speech at the 1880 Republican National Convention http://fairfaxfreecitizen.com/2015/07/02/22640/ <br class="br">1880s

“I take it that the question of employees is only a question of private and corporate economy, and individuals or companies have the right to buy labor where they can get it cheapest. We have a treaty with the Chinese government which should be religiously kept until its provisions are abrogated by the action of the general Government, and I am not prepared to say that it should be abrogated until our great manufacturing and corporate interests are conserved in the matter of labor.”

James A. Garfield

This politically motivated misattribution was contained in a forged letter circulated during the 1880 presidential campaign. Reported in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions (1990), p. 31
Misattributed

“I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.”

James A. Garfield

In a letter to Burke Aaron Hinsdale (1 January 1867); quoted in The Life of Gen. James A. Garfield (1880) by Jonas Mills Bundy, p. 77
1860s

“Between death on the field and death by starvation, I do not know that the American people will see any great difference. The end, if successfully reached, would be death in either case. Gentlemen, you have it in your power to kill this government; you have it in your power, by withholding these two bills, to smite the nerve-centers of our Government.”

James A. Garfield

1870s, Speech (1879)

“There towers to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of slaves, and I read on its little headstone this, 'Sacred to the memory of Human Slavery'. For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic Party taught that it was divine; God's institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they followed it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln; dead by the power of the Republican Party, dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don't camp there, young man. That is no place in which to put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom, of all that is glorious under these night stars.”

James A. Garfield

1870s, An Appeal to Young Men (1879)

“The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.”

James A. Garfield

As quoted in Garfield of Ohio : The Available Man (1970) by John M. Tyler

“I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.”

James A. Garfield

A Dictionary of Thoughts : Being A Cyclopedia Of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 327
Variant: I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.

“Under this Constitution the boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the foundations of order and peace have been strengthened, and the growth of our people in all the better elements of national life has indicated the wisdom of the founders and given new hope to their descendants.”

James A. Garfield

1880s, Inaugural address (1881)

“No federal legislation prior to 1812 placed any restriction on the right of suffrage in consequence of the color of the citizen. From 1789 to 1812 Congress passed ten separate laws establishing new Territories. In all these, freedom, and not color, was the basis of suffrage.”

James A. Garfield

1860s, Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)

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

James A. Garfield

Letter to H. N. Eldridge (12 December 1869) as quoted in Garfield (1978) by Allen Peskin, Ch. 13
1860s
Variant: The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.

“I love to deal with doctrines and events. The contests of men about men I greatly dislike.”

James A. Garfield

Diary (14 March 1881)
1880s

“A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.”

James A. Garfield

"Elements of Success," Speech at Spencerian Business College, Washington, D.C. (29 July 1869); in President Garfield and Education : Hiram College Memorial (1881) by B. A. Hinsdale, p. 326 http://books.google.com/books?id=rA4XAAAAYAAJ <br class="br">1860s <br class="br">Variant: A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.