Grover Cleveland Quotations

A truly American sentiment recognizes the dignity of labor and the fact that honor lies in honest toil.

What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.

Communism is a hateful thing, and a menace to peace and organized government.

There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice

Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.

Sometimes I wake at night in the White House and rub my eyes and wonder if it is not all a dream.

The ship of democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those on board.

I know there is a Supreme Being who rules the affairs of men and whose goodness and mercy have always followed the American people, and I know He will not turn from us now if we humbly and reverently seek His powerful aid.

The United States is not a nation to which peace is a necessity.

I have tried so hard to do right.

It is better to be defeated standing for a high principle than to run by committing subterfuge.

A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.

Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters.

I have considered the pension list of the republic a roll of honor.

Your every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, exercises a public trust.

In the scheme of our national government, the presidency is preeminently the people's office.

Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

Minds do not act together in public; they simply stick together; and when their private activities are resumed, they fly apart again.

I would rather the man who presents something for my consideration subject me to a zephyr of truth and a gentle breeze of responsibility rather than blow me down with a curtain of hot wind.

No man has ever yet been hanged for breaking the spirit of a law.

He mocks the people who proposes that the government shall protect the rich and that they in turn will care for the laboring poor.

After an existence of nearly 20 years of almost innocuous desuetude, these laws are brought forth.

Unswerving loyalty to duty, constant devotion to truth, and a clear consciencewill overcome every discouragement and surely lead the way to usefulness andhigh achievement.

Party honesty is party duty, and party courage is party expediency.

We do not believe that the American people will knowingly elect to the Presidency a coarse debauchee who would bring his harlots with him to Washington, and hire lodgings for them convenient to the White House.

Sometimes people wouldn't bother calling me back. They'd think it was a prank. My dad's side of the family -- big Democrats.

Loyalty to the principles upon which our Government rests positively demands that the equality before the law which it guarantees to every citizen should be justly and in good faith conceded in all parts of the land.

Good ball players make good citizens.

In these sad and ominous days of mad fortune chasing, every patriotic, thoughtful citizen, whether he fishes or not, should lament that we have not among our countrymen more fishermen.

I'm only waiting for my wife to grow up.

Some day I will be better remembered.

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the General Government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit.

It is said that the quality of recent immigration is undesirable. The time is quite within recent memory when the same thing was said of immigrants who, with their descendants, are now numbered among our best citizens.

Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again.

The admitted right of a government to prevent the influx of elements hostile to its internal peace and security may not be questioned, even where there is not treaty stipulation on the subject.

Party honesty is party expediency.

He who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen . . . should share with him. . . . Your every voter, as surely as your Chief Magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in a different sphere, exercises a public trust.

I have tried so hard to do the right.

My greatest trials come through those professing to be near and attached friends, who expect things.

Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them as public officials.

The best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of the purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen. ... At this hour the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph should be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. ... Public extravagance begets extravagance among the people.

It is a condition which confronts us-not a theory.

A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities, and the United States, in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened nations, would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.

I cannot help but think it perilous to suffer these lands or the sources of their irrigation to fall into the hands of monopolies, which by such means may exercise lordship over the areas dependent on their treatment for productiveness.

The broad rich acres of our agricultural plains have been long preserved by nature to become her untrammeled gift to a people civilized and free, upon which should rest in well-distributed ownership the numerous homes of enlightened, equal and fraternal citizens... Nor should our vast tracts of land be yielded up to the monopoly of corporations or grasping individuals, as appears to be much the tendency under the existing statute.

Grover Cleveland declined to participate in character attacks on Blaine . When presented with papers which purported to be extremely damaging to Blaine, he grabbed them, tore them up, flung the shreds into the fire, and decreed, "The other side can have a monopoly of all the dirt in this campaign.

William McKinley has left us a priceless gift in the example of a useful and pure life, in his fidelity to public trusts and in his demonstration of the value of kindly virtues that not only ennoble but lead to success.

If you are still in school, do not neglect your grades. Internships and other activities are fine, but when legal employers have to decide who to interview, grades play a big role in determining who makes that cut and who doesn't.

Men and times change-but principles-never.

The wage earner relies upon the ventures of confident and contented capital. This failing him, his condition is without alleviation, for he can neither prey on the misfortune of others nor hoard his labor.

Being president means leaving one's name in the history book of which few men are authors. It is my fortune to be blessed with a proud name, one that parents will employ for generations to instill the values of honesty, independence, and above all, courage in their sons.

I have a Congress on my hands.

Under our scheme of government the waste of public money is a crime against the citizen.

Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service.

After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth.

I know that human prejudice - especially that growing out of race and religion - is cruelly inveterate and lasting.

It is the responsibility of the citizens to support their government. It is not the responsibility of the government to support its citizens.

The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their government, its functions do not include the support of the people.

I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan to indulge in benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds ... I find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution.

The communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrown of overweening cupidity and selfishness which assiduously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wide disorder the citadel of misrule.

At times like the present, when the evils of unsound finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuations of values; but the wage earner - the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction - is practically defenseless.

Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity.

No investment on earth is so safe, so sure, so certain to enrich its owners as undeveloped realty. I always advise my friends to place their savings in realty near a growing city. There is no such savings bank anywhere.

WHATEVER YOU DO, TELL THE TRUTH.

The paramount duty of maintaining public order and defending the interests of our own people may require the adoption of measures of restriction, but they should not tolerate the oppression of individuals of a special race.

Above all, tell the truth.

And let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowledging the power and goodness of Almighty God, who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country's history, let us invoke His aid and His blessings upon our labors.

A cause worth fighting for is worth fighting for to the end.

In calm water every ship has a good captain.

Honor lies in honest toil.

The laboring classes constitute the main part of our population. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert their rights when endangered by aggregated capital and all statutes on this subject should recognize the care of the State for honest toil and be framed with a view of improving the condition of the workingman

Patriotism is no substitute for a sound currency.

It is no credit to me to do right. I am never under any temptation to do wrong!

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.

When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government.

All must admit that the reception of the teachings of Christ results in the purest patriotism, in the most scrupulous fidelity to public trust, and in the best type of citizenship.

Unswerving loyalty to duty, constant devotion to truth, and a clear conscience will overcome every discouragement and surely lead the way to usefulness and high achievement.

What do you imagine the American people would think of me if I wasted my time going to the ball game?

The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.

If it takes the entire army and navy to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card will be delivered.

The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.

As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully restrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people's masters.

Unskilled in sophistry and new to the darker ways of national politics, Grover Cleveland faced his accusers, his slanderers, and his judges, the sovereign people, conscious of the general rectitude of his life, and courageously determined to bear the burdens of his sins in so far as guilt was his.

The appointing power of the Pope is treated as a public trust, and not as a personal perquisite.

I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality; that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one.

The trusts and combinations - the communism of pelf - whose machinations have prevented us from reaching the success we deserved, should not be forgotten nor forgiven.

I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of administering the government in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and purposes. They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their affairs cover tricks and betrayal. The statesmanship they require consists in honesty and frugality, a prompt response to the needs of the people as they arise, and a vigilant protection of all their varied interests.

We will not forget that Liberty has made her home here, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected...A stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and mans oppression until Liberty enlightens the world.

I can find no warrant for such appropriation in the Constitution.

Well, my dear fellow what did you expect, champagne?

come at the most pleasant season of the year, nearly midway between the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, and would fill a wide gap in the chronology of legal holidays.

And still the question, "What shall be done with our ex-Presidents?" is not laid at rest; and I sometimes think Watterson's solution of it, "Take them out and shoot them," is worthy of attention

The lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government, Government should not support the people.