The quotations of

Rutherford B. Hayes

President of the United States from 1877 to 1881

1822–1893

10 quotes, most often on Money, Economics and War & Peace. Part of the U.S. Presidents collection.

Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.
Diary (13 July 1879)
- Money
Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers.
Diary (16 February 1890)
- Economics
- Money
Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier’s occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.
Diary (11 August 1890)
- War & Peace
The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.
Diary (12 December 1890)
- Economics
- Money
War is a cruel business and there is brutality in it on all sides.
Letter to Lucy Webb Hayes, whose cousin was a prisoner and died at Andersonville prison (2 July 1864)
- War & Peace
The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher.
Letter “to a leading editor” (10 April 1875), as quoted in The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes (1876) edited by James Quay Howard, ch. X, p. 144
- Politics
The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital.
Diary (11 March 1888)
- Money
- Power
I have a talent for silence and brevity. I can keep silent when it seems best to do so, and when I speak I can, and do usually, quit when I am done.
Diary (20 November 1872)
- Talking
As knowledge spreads, wealth spreads. To diffuse knowledge is to diffuse wealth. To give all an equal chance to acquire knowledge is the best and surest way to give all an equal chance to acquire property.
Diary (15 May 1878)
- Knowledge
- Money
This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.
Diary (11 March 1888)

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