James A. Garfield1831–1881The quotations of
James A. Garfield
President of the United States in 1881
1831–1881
14 quotes, most often on Government and Race.
- Speech on the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (4 July 1876)
The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.
If any theories or opinions of mine can be damaged by facts, so much the worse for my theories.
Commissioner Wells’s Report. Remarks made in the House of Representatives, January 1869. Quoted inAll free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.
Letter to B. A. Hinsdale, (21 April 1880), in The Nation’s Hero — In Memoriam : The Life of James Abram Garfield (1881) by J. M. Bundy, p. 216I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.
A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being A Cyclopedia Of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern (1908) by Tryon Edwards, p. 327- Diary (8 June 1881)
- Garfield’s Words (1882)
- Statement of 1876, in The Diary of James A. Garfield: 1875-1877 (1983), edited by Harry James Brown and Frederick D. Williams. p. 396
- Letter accepting the Republican nomination to run for President (12 July 1880)
- Oration at Ravenna, Ohio (1865)
- Speech to the ‘Boys in Blue’ (1880)
- The Province of History (c. 1856), Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 620
Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.
As quoted in E. E. Brown, The Life and Public Services of James A. Garfield (1881), p. 437The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.
Letter to H. N. Eldridge (12 December 1869) as quoted in Garfield (1978) by Allen Peskin, Ch. 13
