Quotes from Rutherford B. Hayes

He serves his party best who serves his country best.

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

I have the greatest aversion to being a candidate on a ticket with a man whose record as an upright public man is to be in question--to be defended from the beginning to the end.

My father and mother in 1817 were forty-nine days on the road with their emigrant wagons [from Vermont] to Ohio. More than two days for each hour that I spent in the same journey.

Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise.

It is a government of the people by the people for the people no longer it is a government of corporations by corporations for corporations

I do not think a revival of business will be greatly postponed by [Samuel J.] Tilden's election. Business prosperity does not, inmy judgment, depend on government so much as men commonly think.

Free government cannot long endure if property is largely in a few hands, and large masses of people are unable to earn homes, education, and a support in old age.

I would honor the man who give to his country a good newspaper.

I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher.

The independence of all political and other bother is a happiness.

Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier's occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.

Must swear off from swearing. Bad habit.

The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.

I am less disposed to think of a West Point education as requisite for this business than I was at first. Good sense and energy are the qualities required.

Perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn't break and that the enemy's did.

Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can't soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.

The bold enterprises are the successful ones. Take counsel of hopes rather than of fears to win in this business.

We are in a period when old questions are settled and the new are not yet brought forward. Extreme party action, if continued in such a time, would ruin the party. Moderation is its only chance. The party out of power gains by all partisan conduct of those in power.

I am a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method (and conduct).

It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear.

I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment the sober second thought of the people.

Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration but the soldier's occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.