Quotes from Benjamin Harrison

It is often easier to assemble armies than it is to assemble army revenues.

Prayer steadies one when he is walking in slippery places - even if things asked for are not given.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

There never has been a time in our history when work was so abundant or when wages were as high, whether measured by the currency in which they are paid or by their power to supply the necessaries and comforts of life.

Lincoln had faith in time, and time has justified his faith.

That one flag encircles us with its folds today, the unrivaled object of our loyal love.

I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day. I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it. We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Lincoln had faith in time, and time has justified his faith.

Have you not learned that not stocks or bonds or stately homes or products of mill or field are our country It is the splendid thought that is in our minds.

We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration, but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it.

What saddens me most is that some poor woman out there has to be Garth's wife. And his three children -- oh, his poor three children. What a despicable human being this guy is.

I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth will starve in the process.

In the old Republican days the subject of slavery and of the saving of the Union made appeals to the consciences and liberty-loving instincts of the people. These later years have been full of talk about commerce and dinner pails, but I feel sure that the American conscience and the American love of liberty have not been smothered. They will break through this crust of sordidness and realize that those only keep their liberties who accord liberty to others.

Our mission is not to impose our peculiar institutions upon other nations by physical force or diplomatic treachery but rather by internal peace and prosperity to solve the problem of self-government and reconcile democratic freedom with national stability.

If kittens turn into cats why don't puppies turn into paps?

If you take out of your statutes, your constitution, your family life all that is taken from the Sacred Book, what would there be left to bind society together?

When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?

This Government has found occasion to express, in a friendly spirit, but with much earnestness, to the Government of the Czar, its serious concern because of the harsh measures now being enforced against the Hebrews in Russia.

I knew that my staying up would not change the election result if I were defeated, while if elected I had a hard day ahead of me. So I thought a night's rest was best in any event.

Great lives never go out; they go on.

The bud of victory is always in the truth.

The evil works from a bad center both ways. It demoralizes those who practice it and destroys the faith of those who suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector

Will it not be wise to allow the friendship between nations to rest upon deep and permanent things? Irritations of the cuticle must not be confounded with heart failure.