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.
[I]t would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of revenues of the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian schools.
The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done all. The preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so successfully attained by the Administration of my predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought.
The people are responsible for the character of their Congress.
Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.
[The President is] the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.
Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves.
It is not part of the functions of the national government to find employment for people and if we were to appropriate a hundred millions for this purpose, we should be taxing forty millions of people to keep a few thousand employed.
The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.
Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.
Poverty is uncomfortable; but 9 times out of 10 the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and be compelled to sink or swim.
I have had many troubles, but the worst of them never came.
A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.