John James Ingalls Quotations

There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave.

Happiness is an endowment and not an acquisition. It depends more upon temperament and disposition than environment.

The golden rule has no place in a political campaign.

I knock unbidden once at every gate-- If sleeping, wake--if feasting, rise before I turn away--it is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save death, but those who doubt of hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore, I answer not, and I return no more.

I think some orator commenting upon that fate said that though the winds of heaven might whistle around an Englishman's cottage, the King of England could not.

The purification of politics is an iridescent dream.

Ad astra per aspera. Translated: "to the stars through difficulties".

Every man is the center of a circle, whose fatal circumference he can not pass.

Grass is the forgiveness of nature - her constant benediction. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal...Its tenacious fibers hold the earth in place and prevent its soluble components from washing to the wasting sea.

I answer not, and I return no more.

Pennsylvania, the state that has produced two great men: Benjamin Franklin of Massachusetts, and Albert Gallatin of Switzerland.

Delaware: a state that has three counties when the tide is out, and two when it is in.

In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave.

Grass is the forgiveness of nature-her constant benediction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown, like rural lanes and are obliterated. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal.