James A. Garfield Quotes

The so called “Arab Spring” … is really a situation which is creating more threats so far than positive incentives.

When Religion and Royalty are swept away, the people will attack the great, and after the great, they will fall upon the rich.

To judge from all Communist papers, magazines and brochures, and from all public assemblies, one might even surmise that a revolt of the poor peasants in Western Europe might break out at any moment!

Revolutions break out when opposite parties, the rich and the poor, are equally balanced, and there is little or nothing between them.

American blood will run in the streets.

I came to the cities in a time of disorder When hunger ruled. I came among men in a time of uprising And I revolted with them.

We have two American flags always; one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it, it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it, it means danger, revolution.

A repressed minority is an angry one, which may ultimately threaten the government's stability.

Ireland was almost constantly agitated by rebellions and insurrections, which, although not always taking their rise from the difference of religious opinions, between the English and Irish, were aggravated and rendered more bitter and irreconcilable from that cause.

Insurrections made by a few who attempt to raise the people in order to achieve a state of affairs that these very people do not understand, must fear defeat, their inevitable end.

Two things are from now on impossible in France: revolution and war.

When citizens have no political way to deal with revolution, they become counter-revolutionary.

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

In a democracy, when you have 20 million people in the street, you resign. Unfortunately, we don’t have a process of recall or impeachment as you have. It was a popular uprising rejecting Mr. Morsi’s continuing in power. Unfortunately, people had to call on the army to intervene. The army had to intervene because short of that, we would have ended up in a civil war.

Each day threatens to engulf us in a veritable civil war... This is how things now stand gentlemen. The time has come for the Nation to make clear whether it desires to follow the way of the rebels [Kmer Rouge], or to continue in the path that I have traced.

The ferment here [Holland] has made terrifying progress and if it is not stopped, it is to be feared that it may cause an explosion which will have incalculable consequences…. The patriots themselves … have judged that it is possible to destroy the Anglo-Stadholderian government only by mobilizing the bourgeois. They in their turn are led on by the impetus since they hear only of tyranny on the one hand and liberty on the other.

In 1921 there was an extensive Red Scare and Military Intelligence thought that we were only days away from a civil war.

I can't for the life of me think of the link between Iraq and why a fruit vendor self-immolates in Tunisia and cracks this seemingly solid crust that turns out to be so fragile that societal unrest touches off.

In the process of the Arab Spring, we have unfortunately seen a development in Syria where the regime has been oppressing its people.

How long can we keep kidding these people? How long before they turn their guns in the other direction?

We have reached a crises in the history of this country when no man, however humble his rank or limited his influence, has a right to stand neutral..

Revolution by the have-nots has a way of inducing a moral revelation among the haves.

We are not to hope that we shall end this controversy without the sharpest, sharpest conflicts. We are not to flatter ourselves, that popular resolves, popular harangues, popular acclamations, and popular vapor will vanquish our foes: let us consider, before we advance to those measures which must bring on the most trying and terrible struggle this country ever saw.

Scarcely a year now passes without an insurrection in some of their [China’s] provinces. It is true they are soon suppressed, but their frequency is a strong symptom of the fever within.

Suddenly in a matter of months there were more than 100 thousand Boxers in the capital, from ordinary people to soldiers to princes and grandees … The capital would be plunged into unthinkable peril if I tried to use the army to crush them. I have to go along with them and salvage the situation somehow...