Quote#Freedom
Mister Speaker, I am not able to understand the mental organization…
Quote byJames A. Garfield · 1831–1881
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech in the House of Representatives (1871).
English (original)
Mister Speaker, I am not able to understand the mental organization of the man who can consider this bill, and the subject of which it treats, as free from very great difficulties. He must be a man of very moderate abilities, whose ignorance is bliss, or a man of transcendent genius, whom no difficulties can daunt and whose clear vision no cloud can obscure.
— James A. Garfield
More from James A. Garfield
Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself,— that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.
The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work relating to others.
Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty.
I would rather be beaten in Right than succeed in Wrong.
Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim for himself.
I believe in God, and I trust myself in His hands.