Grover Cleveland Quotes

The ship of Democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those aboard.

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

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.

In calm water every ship has a good captain.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Above all, tell the truth.

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.

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

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.

WHATEVER YOU DO, TELL THE TRUTH.

Honor lies in honest toil.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Patriotism is no substitute for a sound currency.

Party honesty is party expediency.

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

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.

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.

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

The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.