The bold enterprises are the successful ones. Take counsel of hopes rather than of fears to win in this business.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself; indeed, it seems to execute itself.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
I am less disposed to think of a West Point education as requisite for this business than I was at first. Good sense and energy are the qualities required.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Must swear off from swearing. Bad habit.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
The filth and noise of the crowded streets soon destroy the elasticity of health which belongs to the country boy.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
I am a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method (and conduct).
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Virtue is defined to be mediocrity, of which either extreme is vice.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and State, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Unjust attacks on public men do them more good than unmerited praise.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Do not let your bachelor ways crystallize so that you can’t soften them when you come to have a wife and a family of your own.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
He serves his party best who serves his country best.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Universal suffrage should rest upon universal education. To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
The President of the United States should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves his country best.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Wars will remain while human nature remains. I believe in my soul in cooperation, in arbitration; but the soldier’s occupation we cannot say is gone until human nature is gone.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
No person connected with me by blood or marriage will be appointed to office.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
The truth is, this being errand boy to one hundred and fifty thousand people tires me so by night I am ready for bed instead of soirees.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
As friends go it is less important to live.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
The progress of society is mainly the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
Universal suffrage is sound in principle. The radical element is right.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
The independence of all political and other bother is a happiness.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
We are in a period when old questions are settled and the new are not yet brought forward. Extreme party action, if continued in such a time, would ruin the party. Moderation is its only chance. The party out of power gains by all partisan conduct of those in power.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment the sober second thought of the people.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
I feel the desire to be with you all the time.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
I know perfectly well that the rank has been conferred on all sorts of small people and so cheapened shamefully, but I can’t help feeling that getting it at the close of a most bloody campaign on the recommendation of fighting generals like Crook and Sheridan is a different thing.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
I know we are in frequent perils, that we may never return and all that, but the feeling that I am where I ought to be is a full compensation for all that is sinister, leaving me free to enjoy as if on a pleasure tour.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
We now talk of our killed and wounded. There is however a very happy feeling. Those who escape regret of course the loss of comrades and friends, but their own escape and safety to some extent modifies their feelings.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
We have now become pretty well acquainted with the sugar-growing part of Texas. The life of a planter who has a fair start in the world is one of the most independent imaginable. We here find the pleasures of fashionable life without its tyranny. I doubt, however, whether a person of Northern education could so far forget his home-bred notions and feelings as ever to be thoroughly Southern on the subject of slavery. We have seen none of “the horrors” so often described, but on the other hand I have seen nothing to change my Northern opinions.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
While your rheumatism stays with you I naturally feel anxious to hear often. If you should be so unlucky as to become a cripple, it will certainly be bad, but you may be sure I shall be still a loving husband, and we shall make the best of it together.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
I still feel just as I told you, that I shall come safely out of this war. I felt so the other day when danger was near. I certainly enjoyed the excitement of fighting our way out of Giles to the Narrows as much as any excitement I ever experienced. I had a good deal of anxiety the first hour or two on account of my command, but not a particle on my own account. After that, and after I saw that we were getting on well, it was really jolly. We all joked and laughed and cheered constantly.
— Rutherford B. Hayes
