Quotes from James A. Garfield

I am a poor hater.

[Science] is the literature of God written on the stars-the trees-the rocks-and more important because [of] its marked utilitarian character.

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

Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.

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

God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!

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

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

Talleyrand once said to the first Napoleon that the United States is a giant without bones. Since that time our gristle has been rapidly hardening.

A noble life crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth.

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.

For love of country, they accepted death.

We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government.

Ideas control the world.

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

I believe in God, and I trust myself in His hands.

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

The sin of slavery is one of which it may be said that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.

Commerce links all mankind in one common brotherhood of mutual dependence and interests.

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify: 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 for himself.

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

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

My God! What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get into it?

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.