William McKinley Quotes

That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.

The American flag has not been planted on foreign soil to acquire more territory but for humanity's sake.

In the time of darkest defeat, victory may be nearest.

The liberty to make our laws does not give us the freedom nor the license to break our laws!

Strong hearts and helpful hands are needed, and, fortunately, we have them in every part of our beloved country.

War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed.

I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance and one night late it came to me this way. We could not leave (the Philippines) to themselves-they were unfit for self-government-and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was. There was nothing left for us to do but take them all and educate the Filipinos, and uplift and Christianize them.

Half-heartedness never won a battle.

The path of progress is seldom smooth. New things are often found hard to do. Our fathers found them so. We find them so. But are we not made better for the effort and scarifice?

I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a word of inspiration. It is the badge of poverty, the signal of distress. Cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean a cheap country.

Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps

Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by those who do not like free government, that here we count heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also . . .

I am for America because America is for the common people.

The more profoundly we study this wonderful Book, and the more closely we observe its divine precepts, the better citizens we will become and the higher will be our destiny as a nation.

The free man cannot be long an ignorant man.

The people of this country want an industrial policy that is for America and Americans.

We go to war only to make peace. We never went to war with any other design. We carry the national conscience wherever we go.

The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.

We cannot gamble with anything so sacred as money.

Finally it should be the earnest wish and paramount aim of the military administration to win the confidence, respect, and affection of the inhabitants of the Philippines by assuring them in every possible way that full measure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of free peoples, and by proving to them that the mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule.

We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny.

The American people, intrenched in freedom at home, take their love for it with them wherever they go.

I have never been in doubt since I was old enough to think intelligently that I would someday be made President.

Our earnest prayer is that God will graciously vouchsafe prosperity, happiness, and peace to all our neighbors, and like blessings to all the peoples and powers of the earth

I am a tariff man, standing on a tariff platform.