James A. Garfield Quotes
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I have had many troubles in my life, but the worst of them never came.
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The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.
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To his chief of staff, David G. Swaim Oh Swaim, there is a pain here. Swaim, can't you stop this? Oh, oh, Swaim!
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A law is not a law without coercion behind it.
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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.
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Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.
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I thank you doctor, but I am a dead man.
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The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.
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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.
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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.
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I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.
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Between death on the field and death by starvation, I do not know that the American people will see any great difference. The end, if successfully reached, would be death in either case. Gentlemen, you have it in your power to kill this government; you have it in your power, by withholding these two bills, to smite the nerve-centers of our Government.
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Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
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There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States.
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Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.
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Justice and goodwill will outlast passion.
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I am a poor hater.
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Suicide is not a remedy.
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If wrinkles must be written on our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.
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Ideas control the world.
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Garfield: 'Old boy! Do you think my name will have a place in human history?' Rockwell: 'Yes, a grand one, but a grander one in human hearts. Old fellow, you mustn’t talk in that way. You have a great work yet to perform.' Garfield: 'No. My work is done.'
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A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
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Nobody but radicals have ever accomplished anything in a great crisis.
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The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think.