James Buchanan Quotes

21 quotes in 324 categories

• To avoid entangling alliances has been a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washington, and its wisdom no one will attempt to…
• The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men.
• If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed.
• What is right and what is practicable are two different things.
• I like the noise of democracy.
• The test of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
• No form of government, however admirable in itself and however productive of material benefits, can compensate for the loss of peace and domestic security around…
• Time is a great corrective. Political subjects which but a few years ago excited and exasperated the public mind have passed away and are now…
• I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion.
• It is the imperative and indispensable duty of the Government of the United States to secure to every resident inhabitant the free and independent expression…
• I feel an humble confidence that the kind Providence which inspired our fathers with wisdom to frame the most perfect form of government and union…
• Abstract propositions should never be discussed by a legislative body.
• There is nothing stable but Heaven and the Constitution.
• We must have Cuba; we can't do without Cuba...
• Prevent the American people from crossing the Rocky Mountains? You might as well command Niagara not to flow. We must fulfill our destiny.
• Liberty must be allowed to work out its natural results; and these will, ere long, astonish the world.
• Our union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war.
• The distribution of patronage of the Government is by far the most disagreeable duty of the President.
• The remedy for this state of things can only be supplied by Congress, since the Constitution has confided to that body alone the power to…
• I believe it to be a great political and a great moral evil. I thank God, my lot has been cast in a state where…

Browse James Buchanan Quotes by Category