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The most noticeable weakness of Congressmen is their timidity. They fear the use to be made of their record. They are afraid ofmaking enemies. They do not vote according to their convictions from fear of consequences.

Rutherford B. Hayes

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Rutherford B. Hayes
Age: 70 †
Born: 1822
Born: October 4
Died: 1893
Died: January 17
19Th U.S. President
Lawyer
Military Officer
Politician
Statesperson
Delaware
Ohio
Rutherford Birchard Hayes
Rutherford Hayes
R. B. Hayes
President Hayes
Made
Weakness
Timidity
Record
Congressman
Vote
Convictions
Afraid
Consequences
Records
Enemies
Enemy
According
Use
Conviction
Noticeable
Fear
Consequence
Congressmen

More quotes by Rutherford B. Hayes

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I do not think a revival of business will be greatly postponed by [Samuel J.] Tilden's election. Business prosperity does not, inmy judgment, depend on government so much as men commonly think.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. As millionaires increase, pauperism grows. The more millionaires, the more paupers.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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What Congress and the popular sentiment approve is rarely defeated by reason of constitutional objections. I trust the measure will turn out well. It is a great relief to me. Defeat in this way, after a full and public hearing before this [Electoral] Commission, is not mortifying in any degree, and success will be in all respects more satisfactory.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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The truth is, this being errand boy to one hundred and fifty thousand people tires me so by night I am ready for bed instead of soirees.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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I too mean to be out of politics. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gives me the boon of equality before the law, terminates my enlistment, and discharges me cured.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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My policy is trust, peace, and to put aside the bayonet. I do not think the wise policy is to decide contested elections in the States by the use of the national army.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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Law without education is a dead letter. With education the needed law follows without effort and, of course, with power to execute itself indeed, it seems to execute itself.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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Personally I do not resort to force - not even the force of law - to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example - of fashion.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage. Legislation is required to establish the reform. No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office-seeking. Men of good character and impulses are betrayed by it into all sorts of meanness.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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Every age has its temptations, its weaknesses, its dangers. Ours is in the line of the snobbish and the sordid.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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I am loaded down to the guards with educational, benevolent, and other miscellaneous public work, I must not attempt to do more. I cannot without neglecting imperative duties.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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An amazing invention - but who would ever want to use one?
Rutherford B. Hayes
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I am succeeding very well so far with my legging, but it is a very mean business for a man that has been well brought up to engage in. It is the only way to get a bill from Cincinnati through, so it must be done.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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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.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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I regard the inflation acts as wrong in all ways. Personally I am one of the noble army of debtors, and can stand it if others can. But it is a wretched business.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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We all agree that neither the Government nor political parties ought to interfere with religious sects. It is equally true that religious sects ought not to interfere with the Government or with political parties. We believe that the cause of good government and the cause of religion both suffer by all such interference.
Rutherford B. Hayes
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The independence of all political and other bother is a happiness.
Rutherford B. Hayes