27 John Tyler Quotes

John Tyler quotes

1. I can never consent to being dictated to.

2. I now leave that bed which has afforded me little rest, and eagerly seek repose in the quiet enjoyments of rural life.

3. If the tide of defamation and abuse shall turn, and my administration come to be praised, future Vice-Presidents who may succeed to the Presidency may feel some slight encouragement to pursue an independent course.

4. In 1840 I was called from my farm to undertake the administration of public affairs and I foresaw that I was called to a bed of thorns.

5. Patronage is the sword and cannon by which war may be made on the liberty of the human race.

6. Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.

7. So far as it depends on the course of this government, our relations of good will and friendship will be sedulously cultivated with all nations.

8. Let it, then, be henceforth proclaimed to the world, that man's conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.

9. Wealth can only be accumulated by the earnings of industry and the savings of frugality.

1. A republican government can only be supported by virtue; and the end of all our legislation should be to encourage our fellow citizens in its daily practice.

2. On the coming of that tremendous storm which for eight years desolated our country, Mr. Jefferson hesitated not, halted not.

3. The applause of his native land is the richest reward to which the patriot ever aspires. It is this for which 'he bears to live or dares to die.' It is the high incentive to those achievements which illustrate the page of history and give to poetry its brightest charm.

4. Everything dependent on human action is liable to abuse.

5. We have continued reason to express our profound gratitude to the Great Creator of All Things for numberless benefits conferred upon us as a people. Blessed with genial seasons, the husbandman has his garners filled with abundance, and the necessaries of life, not to speak of its luxuries, abound in every direction. While in some other nations steady and industrious labor can hardly find the means of subsistence, the greatest evil which we have to encounter is a surplus of production beyond the home demand, which seeks, and with difficulty finds, a partial market in other regions.

6. Parties are continually changing. The men of today give place to the men of tomorrow, and the idols which one set worship, the next destroy.

7. Liberty and equality are captivating sounds, but they often captivate to destroy.

8. Our wise men flattered us into the adoption of the banking system under the idea that boundless wealth would result from the adoption.

9. When the happy era shall arrive for the emancipation of nations, hastened on as it will be by the example of America, shall they not resort to the Declaration of our Independence as the charter of their rights, and will not its author be hailed as the benefactor of the redeemed?

10. It was hard graft all the way and a good result in the end.

11. Nature governs man by no principle more fixed than that which leads him to pursue his interest.

12. Here lies the body of my good horse, The General. For years he bore me around the circuit of my practice and all that time he never made a blunder. Would that his master could say the same.

13. The great truth that government was made for the people and not the people for government has already been established in the practice and by the example of these United States, and we can do no other than contemplate its further exemplification by a sister republic with the deepest interest.

14. The tolling of yon dismal bell and the loud but solemn discharge of artillery hath announced to the nation the melancholy tidings - Thomas Jefferson no longer lives!

15. I am charged with violating pledges which I never gave; and because I execute what I believe to be the law, with usurping powers not conferred by law; and above all, with using the powers conferred upon the President by the Constitution, from corrupt motives and for unwarrantable ends.

16. Our form of government can no longer be considered an experiment in politics. Crowned with success, it stands forth an example to the world and exhibits the proudest triumph of reason and philosophy.

17. The United States has adventured upon a great and noble experiment . . . of total separation of Church and State. . . . The offices of the Government are open alike to all. No tithes are levied to support an established Hierarchy, nor is the fallible judgment of man set up as the sure and infallible creed of faith. . . . Such is the great experiment which we have tried, and . . . our system of free government would be imperfect without it.

18. The United States have adventured upon a great and noble experiment, which is believed to have been hazarded in the absence of all previous precedent - that of total separation of Church and State. No religious establishment by law exists among us. The conscience is left free from all restraint and each is permitted to worship his Maker after his own judgement.