James A. Garfield
James A. Garfield
James Abram Garfieldwas the 20th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881, until his assassination later that year. Garfield had served nine terms in the House of Representatives, and had been elected to the Senate before his candidacy for the White House, though he declined the senatorship once he was president-elect. He is the only sitting House member to be elected president...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPresident
Date of Birth19 November 1831
CountryUnited States of America
[The President is] the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.
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.
In my judgment, while it is the duty of Congress to respect to the uttermost the conscientious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen ... not any ecclesiastical organization can be safely permitted to usurp in the smallest degree the functions and powers of the national government.
I have had many troubles in my life, but the worst of them never came.
The divorce between church and state should be absolute.
I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured.
Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.
The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law.
You and I are now nearly in middle age, and have not yet become soured and shrivelled with the wear and tear of life. Let us pray to be delivered from that condition where life and nature have no fresh, sweet sensations for us.
It is not right or manly to lie even about Satan.
Monuments may be builded to express the affection or pride of friends, or to display their wealth, but they are only valuable for the characters which they perpetuate.
There are some things I am afraid of: I am afraid to do a mean thing.
The right of private judgment is absolute in every American citizen.
Wherever a ship ploughs the sea, or a plough furrows the field; wherever a mine yields its treasure; wherever a ship or a railroad train carries freight to market; wherever the smoke of the furnace rises, or the clang of the loom resounds; even in the lonely garret where the seamstress plies her busy needle--there is industry.