Rutherford B. Hayes Quotes

It is a government of the people by the people for the people no longer it is a government of corporations by corporations for corporations

Every expert was once a beginner.

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

Must swear off from swearing. Bad habit.

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty.

The President of the United States should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves his country best.

Free government cannot long endure if property is largely in a few hands, and large masses of people are unable to earn homes, education, and a support in old age.

The bold enterprises are the successful ones. Take counsel of hopes rather than of fears to win in this business.

An amazing invention - but who would ever want to use one?

I would honor the man who give to his country a good newspaper.

Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid.

It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.

One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.

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.

Perhaps the happiest moment of my life was then, when I saw that our line didn't break and that the enemy's did.

My policy is trust peace and to put aside the bayonet.

Personally I do not resort to force - not even the force of law - to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example - of fashion.

The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.

We can travel longer, night and day, without losing our spirits than almost any persons we ever met.

Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office-seeking. Men of good character and impulses are betrayed by it into all sorts of meanness.

In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.

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.

No person connected with me by blood or marriage will be appointed to office.

It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear.

The filth and noise of the crowded streets soon destroy the elasticity of health which belongs to the country boy.

I am a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method (and conduct).

The truth is, this being errand boy to one hundred and fifty thousand people tires me so by night I am ready for bed instead of soirees.

The independence of all political and other bother is a happiness.

The progress of society is mainly the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world.

Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise.

Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can't soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.

Universal suffrage is sound in principle. The radical element is right.

Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.

I am loaded down to the guards with educational, benevolent, and other miscellaneous public work, I must not attempt to do more. I cannot without neglecting imperative duties.

Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself; indeed, it seems to execute itself.

The best religion the world has ever known is the religion of the Bible. It builds up all that is good.

It is a government by the corporations, for the corporations.

The reform [of the civil service] should be thorough, radical, and complete.

I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment - the sober second thought - of the people.

My hobby more and more is likely to be common school education, or universal education.

Disunion and civil war are at hand; and yet I fear disunion and war less than compromise. We can recover from them. The free States alone, if we must go on alone, will make a glorious nation.

As friends go it is less important to live.

I have the greatest aversion to being a candidate on a ticket with a man whose record as an upright public man is to be in question--to be defended from the beginning to the end.

I am a freeman and jolly as a beggar.

Both parties are injured by what is going on at Washington. Both are, therefore, more and more disposed to look for candidates outside of that atmosphere.

Busy replying to letters from divers office-seekers. They come by the dozens.

I would strenuously urge a single term of six years.

The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.