Stephen Grover Cleveland started working with his brother, and later became a clerk while he studied law as a part-time student. He performed exceedingly in his bar exams and worked in a law firm for several years. After that, Grover Cleveland decided to venture into private practices. Due to his excellent performance, he quickly became a very famous lawyer and he later chose to get into politics. His enthusiasm and passion to serving the people saw that he got elected as the Buffalo mayor. Later his fight against corruption boosted his fame that propelled him to being elected as the Governor of New York. But he wasn’t done just yet, his political rank would continue to grow, and he was finally able to serve as the 22nd and 24th resident of the U.S.A for two continuous terms.
During his term as the U.S. president, his main fight was fighting the menace called corruption. In addition, he had excellent leadership skills that further developed his reputation as a leader. During his last term, he was faced with many several issues, such as the Pullman Strike, but economic depression was the most intensive problem. Besides, this few setbacks, he was very popular also for his great sayings and quotes derived from his thoughts, life, work in his writing, and speeches. In case you need additional wisdom concerning life, you must get familiar with his quotes. Here are Grover Cleveland quotes that will keep you encouraged and inspired about life.
Grover Cleveland Quotes
1. “As we view the achievements of aggregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts, combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen is struggling far in the rear or is trampled to death beneath an iron heel. Corporations, which should be the carefully constrained creatures of the law and the servants of the people, are fast becoming the people’s masters.”-Grover Cleveland.
2. “I believe the most important benefit that I can confer on the country by my presidency is to insist upon the entire independence of the executive and legislative branches of the government and compel the members of the legislative branch to see that they have responsibilities of their own, grave and well-defined, which their official oaths bind them sacredly to perform.”-Grover Cleveland.
3. “A cause worth fighting for is worth fighting for to the end.”- Grover Cleveland.
4. “Communism is a hateful thing and a menace to peace and organized government; but the communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and selfishness, which insidiously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil, which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wild disorder the citadel of rule.”-Grover Cleveland.
5. “It is right that the influence of the Government should be known in every humble home as the guardian of frugal comfort and content, and a defense against unjust exactions, and the unearned tribute persistently coveted by the selfish and designing. It is right that efficiency and honesty in public service should not be sacrificed to partisan greed, and it is right that the suffrage of our people should be pure and free.”-Grover Cleveland.
6. “Neither the discontent of party friends, nor the allurements constantly offered of confirmations of appointees conditions upon the avowal that suspensions have been made on party grounds alone, nor the threat proposed in the resolutions now before the Senate that no confirmations will be made unless the demands of that body are complied with, are sufficient to discourage or deter me from following in the way which I am convinced leads to better government for the people.”-Grover Cleveland.
7. “Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by man and woman in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence than ours.”- Grover Cleveland.
8. “We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home; nor shall her chosen altar be neglected.”-Grover Cleveland.
9. “Loyalty to the principles upon which our Government rests positively demands that the equality before the law which it guarantees to every citizen should be justly and in good faith conceded in all parts of the land.”-Grover Cleveland.
10. “Well, my dear fellow, what did you expect, champagne?”-Grover Cleveland.
11. And let us not trust to human effort alone, but humbly acknowledging the power and goodness of Almighty God, who presides over the destiny of nations, and who has at all times been revealed in our country’s history, let us invoke His aid and His blessings upon our labors.”-Grover Cleveland.
12. “No investment on earth is so safe, so sure, so certain to enrich its owners as undeveloped realty. I always advise my friends to place their savings in realty near a growing city. There is no such savings bank anywhere.”-Grover Cleveland.
13. “Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.”-Grover Cleveland.
14. “The laboring classes constitute the main part of our population. They should be protected in their efforts peaceably to assert their rights when endangered by aggregated capital and all statutes on this subject should recognize the care of the State for honest toil and be framed with a view of improving the condition of the workingman”- Grover Cleveland.
15. “The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government. It weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”- Grover Cleveland.
16. “No man has ever yet been hanged for breaking the spirit of a law.”- Grover Cleveland.
17. “A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.”- Grover Cleveland.
18. “I would rather the man who presents something for my consideration subject me to a zephyr of truth and a gentle breeze of responsibility rather than blow me down with a curtain of hot wind.”-Grover Cleveland.
19. “We will not forget that Liberty has made her home here, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected…A stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression until Liberty enlightens the world.”-Grover Cleveland.
20. “All must admit that the reception of the teachings of Christ results in the purest patriotism, in the most scrupulous fidelity to public trust, and the best type of citizenship.”-Grover Cleveland.
22. “When more of the people’s sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government.”- Grover Cleveland.
23. “It is said that the quality of recent immigration is undesirable. The time was quite within recent memory when the same thing was said of immigrants who, with their descendants, are now numbered among our best citizens.”-Grover Cleveland.
24. “The laws should be rigidly enforced which prohibit the immigration of a servile class to compete with American labor, with no intention of acquiring citizenship, and bringing with them and retaining habits and customs repugnant to our civilization.”-Grover Cleveland.
25. “The best results in the operation of a government wherein every citizen has a share largely depend upon a proper limitation of the purely partisan zeal and effort and a correct appreciation of the time when the heat of the partisan should be merged in the patriotism of the citizen. … At this hour, the animosities of political strife, the bitterness of partisan defeat, and the exultation of partisan triumph should be supplanted by an ungrudging acquiescence in the popular will and a sober, conscientious concern for the general weal. … Public extravagance begets extravagance among the people.”-Grover Cleveland.
26. “At times like the present, when the evils of unsound finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may even find profit in the fluctuations of values, but the wage earner – the first to be injured by a depreciated currency and the last to receive the benefit of its correction – is practically defenseless.”-Grover Cleveland.
27. “The broad rich acres of our agricultural plains have been long preserved by nature to become her untrammeled gift to a people civilized and free, upon which should rest in well-distributed ownership the numerous homes of enlightened, equal, and fraternal citizens… Nor should our vast tracts of land be yielded up to the monopoly of corporations or grasping individuals, as appears to be much the tendency under the existing statute.”-Grover Cleveland.
28. “I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose. I can find no warrant for that kind of appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the General Government’s power and duty ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the Government, the Government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government. It weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.”-Grover Cleveland.
29. “Interest yourself in public affairs as a duty of citizenship, but do not surrender your faith to those who discredit and debase politics by scoffing at sentiment and principle and whose political activity consists in attempts to gain popular support by cunning devices and shrewd manipulation.”-Grover Cleveland.
30. “Unskilled in sophistry and new to the darker ways of national politics, Grover Cleveland faced his accusers, his slanderers, and his judges, the sovereign people, conscious of the general rectitude of his life, and courageously determined to bear the burdens of his sins in so far as guilt was his.”- Grover Cleveland.
See also: Harry Truman Quotes and Andrew Johnson Quotes
Video: Fast Facts on Grover Cleveland
If you want to learn more about Grover, checkout this fun educational video. It’s short and worth a watch.
Summary
Glover Cleveland is no doubt an inspirational figure and one of the most famous US presidents. He is still remembered to this day for his quotes that keep you encouraged on different aspects of life. Moreover, they make see issues from a different angle, hence better placed to make a rational decision.
Therefore, reading through this post has highlighted some of his quotes that are a must know that you need to incorporate into your life. These quotes will no doubt be beneficial as Grover Cleveland oozed in leadership skills that are undoubtedly a source of inspiration.
Image Credit: “Grover Cleveland” by Political Graveyard is licensed under CC BY 2.0
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