Rutherford B. Hayes Quotes

My father and mother in 1817 were forty-nine days on the road with their emigrant wagons [from Vermont] to Ohio. More than two days for each hour that I spent in the same journey.

I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher.

It is now true that this is God's Country, if equal rights-a fair start and an equal chance in the race of life are everywhere secured to all.

We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable.

Youth, however, is a defect that she is fast getting away from and may perhaps be entirely rid of before I shall want her.

I do not think a revival of business will be greatly postponed by [Samuel J.] Tilden's election. Business prosperity does not, inmy judgment, depend on government so much as men commonly think.

I too mean to be out of politics. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gives me the boon of equality before the law, terminates my enlistment, and discharges me cured.

Strikes and boycotting are akin to war, and can be justified only on grounds analogous to those which justify war, viz., intolerable injustice and oppression.

The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher.

If any of my men kill prisoners, I'll kill them.

My policy is trust, peace, and to put aside the bayonet. I do not think the wise policy is to decide contested elections in the States by the use of the national army.

General [John] Pope is impulsive and hasty, but energetic, and, what is of most importance, patriotic and sound--perfectly sound.I look for good results.

You know I am given to antiquarian and genealogical pursuits. An old family letter is a delight to my eyes. I can prowl in old trunks of letters by the day with undiminished zest.

Shall the railroads govern the country, or shall the people govern the railroads? Shall the interest of railroad kings be chieflyregarded, or shall the interest of the people be paramount?

For character, to prepare for the inevitable I recommend selections from [Ralph Waldo] Emerson. His writings have done for me far more than all other reading.

One thing you may be sure of, I was not a party to covering up anything.

I regard the inflation acts as wrong in all ways. Personally I am one of the noble army of debtors, and can stand it if others can. But it is a wretched business.

Fighting battles is like courting girls: those who make the most pretensions and are boldest usually win.