“No man, however benevolent, liberal, and wise, can use a large fortune so that it will do half as much good in the world as it would if it were divided into moderate sums and in the hands of workmen who had earned it by industry and frugality. The piling up of estates often does great and conspicuous good…. But no man does with accumulated wealth so much good as the same amount would do in many hands.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Wealth
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“The question for the country now is how to secure a more equal distribution of property among the people. There can be no republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property…. Let no man get by inheritance, or by will, more than will produce at four per cent interest an income … of fifteen thousand dollars] per year, or an estate of five hundred thousand dollars.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Wealth
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“Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Wealth
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“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards … “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Wealth
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“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 Birchard Hayes
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Category: Moderation
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“I saw the man my friend … wants pardoned, Thomas Flinton. He is a bright, good-looking fellow…. Of his innocence all are confident. The governor strikes me as a man seeking popularity, who lacks the independence and manhood to do right at the risk of losing popularity. Afraid of what will be said. He is prejudiced against the Irish and Democrats.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Prejudice
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“You left me last evening, and I am already half homesick about it. Possibly I would not have thought about it so feelingly, but the sight of these gloves put me in mind of it. What a happy time we have had! Six weeks of real, genuine, old-fashioned love.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Passion
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“The religion of the Bible is the best in the world. I see the infinite value of religion. Let it be always encouraged. A world of superstition and folly have grown up around its forms and ceremonies. But the truth in it is one of the deep sentiments in human nature.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Religion
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“Fanny was not there! How she would have enjoyed the scene…. I could not but think of her, and in spite of my efforts to prevent, the unbidden tear would flow. Alas! I cannot feel the satisfaction some appear to do in the reflection that her eyes beheld the scene from the other world.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Religion
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“In the evening we attended a lecture by Rev. Fitch, a missionary for twenty years to China–the husband of our bright cousin, Mary McClelland…. He spoke of the three hundred millions of people in China. Twelve million a year die in ignorance of the Bible–one million a month perishing without salvation! This to me seems monstrous. God, the Father of all, God, who is love, dooms millions of his creatures to eternal torment! … He is to bring a new religion to a polite and cultivated people!”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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“Partisanship should be kept out of the pulpit…. The blindest of partisans are preachers. All politicians expect and find more candor, fairness, and truth in politicians than in partisan preachers. They are not replied to–no chance to reply to them…. The balance wheel of free institutions is free discussion. The pulpit allows no free discussion.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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“I hope you will be benefitted by your churchgoing. Where the habit does not Christianize, it generally civilizes. That is reason enough for supporting churches, if there were no higher.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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“We can travel longer, night and day, without losing our spirits than almost any persons we ever met.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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“My father and mother in 1817 were forty-nine days on the road with their emigrant wagons [from Vermont] to Ohio. More than two days for each hour that I spent in the same journey.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Traveling
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“There is no assurance of the great fact in question [namely, immortality]. All the arguments are mere probabilities, analogies, fancies, whims. We believe, or disbelieve, or are in doubt according to our own make-up–to accidents, to education, to environment. For myself, I do not reach either faith or belief … that I–the conscious person talking to you–will meet you in the world beyond–you being yourself a conscious person–the same person now reading what I say.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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Category: Immortality
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“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 Birchard Hayes
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Category: War
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“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 Birchard Hayes
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Category: War
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“My topic for Army reunions … this summer: How to prepare for war in time of peace. Not by fortifications, by navies, or by standing armies. But by policies which will add to the happiness and the comfort of all our people and which will tend to the distribution of intelligence [and] wealth equally among all. Our strength is a contented and intelligent community.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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“It seems to me that the most important thing in Texas, as everywhere else, is education for all. I, of course, don’t believe in forcing whites and blacks together. But both classes should be fully provided for. I recognize fully the evil of rule by ignorance. I see enough of it under my own eyes. You are not so much worse off in this respect than New York, Chicago, and other cities having a large immigrant population. But the remedy is not, I am sure, to be found in the abandonment of the American principle that all must share in government. The whites of the South must do as we do, forget to drive and learn to lead the ignorant masses around them.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
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“Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.”
Rutherford Birchard Hayes