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James A. Garfield Quotes
1831–1881 United States
James Abram Garfield (19 November 1831 – 19 September 1881) was the 20th president of the United States of America in 1881, and the second U.S. president to be assassinated. His term was the second shortest in U.S. history, after William Henry Harrison's.
United States Academics Lawyers Mathematicians Military leaders Also known as: Garfield, James A., J.A. Garfield, JA Garfield, James Abram Garfield, James Garfield
Random James A. Garfield quote
79 quotes
The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.
A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
Nothing is more uncertain than the result of any one throw; few things more certain than the result of many throws.
I have had many troubles, but the worst of them never came.
The Power of Choice (2007)
The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.
Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.
Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)
I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong.
Maxims of James Abram Garfield (1880)
My God! What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get into it?
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.
For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do every thing.
I believe in God, and I trust myself in His hands.
I thank you doctor, but I am a dead man.
When the shadow of the Presidential and Congressional election is lifted we shall, I hope be in a better temper to legislate.
I am receiving what I suppose to be the usual number of threatening letters on the subject. Assassination can be no more guarded against than death by lightning; it is best not to worry about either.
Garfield of Ohio : The Available Man (1970)
There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.
Inaugural address (1881)
The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.
Garfield's Words (1882)
The lesson of History is rarely learned by the actors themselves.
The return to solid values is always hard... Distress, panic, and hard times have marked our pathway in returning to solid values.
I will not vote against the truths of the multiplication table.
Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear, like owls and bats, before the light of day.
General Garfield as a Statesman and Orator (1881)
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