Quotes from Rutherford B. Hayes

I have the greatest aversion to being a candidate on a ticket with a man whose record as an upright public man is to be in question--to be defended from the beginning to the end.

Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid.

I am a radical in thought (and principle) and a conservative in method (and conduct).

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.

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

He serves his party best who serves his country best.

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.

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.

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.

In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments.

It is now true that this is God's Country, if equal rights-a fair start and an equal chance in the race of life are everywhere secured to all.