Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by James A. Garfield (American Head of State)

James Abram Garfield (1831–81) was an American Republican statesman who served as the 20th president of the U.S. March–September 1881. Before becoming president, he rose from humble beginnings to serve as a nine-time congressman and military general.

Born near Orange, Ohio, Garfield graduated from Williams College in 1856. He worked as a schoolteacher, lay preacher, and lawyer before being elected to the state senate in 1859. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, Garfield commanded a regiment of volunteers fighting at the Battle of Shiloh and winning promotion to major general for gallantry at Chickamauga in 1863.

Garfield resigned his command and served as Congressman from Ohio for 17 years, becoming leader of the Republicans. In 1880, he was elected to the Senate. However, he never occupied the seat because a deadlock at the Republican National Convention made him the compromise presidential candidate.

Elected president by a slim margin, Garfield took office in 1881 and at once alienated a faction of the Republican Party by asserting the right of the president to make political appointments without regard to party patronage.

Within months of Garfield becoming president, a deranged gunman assassinated him in the Washington, D.C. railroad station. As he lingered painfully for over two months before dying, a tricky constitutional question arose concerning who should adequately perform the presidency’s functions.

Notable bibliographies include Allan Peskin’s Garfield (1978, 1987) and Candice Millard’s Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President (2011.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by James A. Garfield

I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Difficulty

He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Nation

History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Prophecy, History

If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Talent, Hard Work, Work

Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of parties, and cannot be evaded by them.—They declare themselves, and come out of the depths of that deep which we call public opinion.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Politics

The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Strength, Conscience, Beliefs, Commitment

Occasion may be the bugle call that summons an army to battle, but the blast of a bugle can never make soldiers nor win battles.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Opportunity

If hard work is not another name for talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.
—James A. Garfield

Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Procrastination, Self-reliance, Getting Going, Effort, Inaction

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify: 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 for himself.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: The Poor, Poverty, Risk, Dedication, Commitment

Most human organizations that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Defeat

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
—James A. Garfield

He who would understand the real spirit of literature should not select authors of any one period alone, but rather go to the fountain head, and trace the little rill as it courses along down the ages broadening and deepening into the great ocean of thought which the men of the present are exploring.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Literature

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Luck

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should never grow old.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Age, Spirituality, Aging

The sanctity of marriage and the family relation make the cornerstone of our American society and civilization.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Marriage

I mean to make myself a man, and if I succeed in that, I shall succeed in everything else.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Man, Men

All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Government

Few men in our history have ever obtained the Presidency by planning to obtain it.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Planning

The lesson of history is rarely learned by the actors themselves.
—James A. Garfield

I have had many troubles in my life, but the worst of them never came.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Trouble

If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind loves and admires better than another, it is a brave man, it is the man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.
—James A. Garfield

Territory is but the body of a nation.—The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Nations

I am not willing that this discussion should close without mention of the value of a true teacher. Give me a log hut, with only a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the other, and you may have all the buildings, apparatus and libraries without him.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Teaching

Swift defined observation to be an old man’s memory.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Observation

Ideas are the great warriors of the world, and a war that has no idea behind it is simply a brutality.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Ideas

Ideas control the world.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: Ideas

Talleyrand once said to the first Napoleon that the United States is a giant without bones. Since that time our gristle has been rapidly hardening.
—James A. Garfield
Topics: America

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *