Quotes from James A. Garfield

Justice and goodwill will outlast passion.

Suicide is not a remedy.

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

I found a kind of party terrorism pervading and oppressing the minds of our best men.

The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate of interest should be accomplished without compelling the withdrawal of the national-bank notes, and thus disturbing the business of the country.

If wrinkles must be written on our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.

True art is but the anti-type of nature; the embodiment of discovered beauty in utility.

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

Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis. Conservatives have their place in the piping times of peace; but in emergencies only rugged issue men amount to much.

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

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

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

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

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

History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.

Of course I deprecate war, but if it is brought to my door the bringer will find me at home.

Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves.

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.

When the shadow of the Presidential and Congressional election is lifted we shall, I hope to be in a better temper to legislate.

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.

If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

A law is not a law without coercion behind it.

No man can make a speech alone. It is the great human power that strikes up from a thousand minds that acts upon him, and makes the speech.

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.