The President is the last person in the world to know what the people really want and think. — James A. Garfield

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

Ideas control the world. — James A. Garfield

Mankind have been slow to believe that order reigns in the universe–that the world is a cosmos and a chaos. — James A. Garfield

Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up. — James A. Garfield

Liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality. — James A. Garfield

For love of country, they accepted death. — James A. Garfield

I love agitation and investigation and glory in defending unpopular truth against popular error. — James A. Garfield

If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire 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

We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self–government. — James A. Garfield

I love to deal with doctrines and events. The contests of men about men I greatly dislike. — James A. Garfield

Justice and goodwill will outlast passion. — James A. Garfield

History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy. — James A. Garfield

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

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

History is philosophy teaching by example, and also warning; its two eyes are geography and chronology. — James A. Garfield

God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives! — James A. Garfield

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

I]t would be unjust to our people and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of revenues of the nation or of the States to the support of sectarian schools. — 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

If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it’s the best possible substitute for it. — James A. Garfield

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. — James A. Garfield

There are some things I am afraid of: I am afraid to do a mean thing. — James A. Garfield

My God! What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get into it? — James A. Garfield

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