Ulysses S. Grant Men Quotations

The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times.

I have made it a rule of my life to trust a man long after other people gave him up, but I don't see how I can ever trust any human being again.

If men make war in slavish observance of rules, they will fail. No rules will apply to conditions of war as different as those which exist in Europe and America...War is progressive, because all the instruments and elements of war are progressive.

The colored man has been accustomed all his life to lean on the white man, and if a good officer is placed over him, he will learn readily and make a good soldier.

It is men who wait to be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we may expect the most efficient service.

How do people come up with a date and a time to take life from another man? . . . Twelve white men say a black man must die, and another white man sets the date and time without consulting one black person. . . . They sentence you to death because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, with no proof that you had anything at all to do with the crime . . . . Yet six months later they come and unlock your cage and tell you, We, us, white folks all, have decided it's time for you to die, because this is the convenient date and time.

There is nothing more I should do to it now, and therefore I am not likely to be more ready to go than at this moment.

So vast a sum, receiving all the protection and benefits of the government, without bearing its proportion of the burdens and expenses of the same, will not be looked upon acquiescently by those who have to pay the taxes. . . . I would suggest the taxation of all property equally.

War is progressive because all instruments of war are progressive.

It is preposterous to suppose that the people of one generation can lay down the best and only rules of government for all who are to come after them, and under unforeseen contingencies.

In 1856...I preferred the success of a candidate whose election would prevent or postpone secession, to seeing the country plunged into a war the end of which no man could foretell. With a Democrat elected by the unanimous vote of the Slave States, there could be no pretext for secession for four years.... I therefore voted for James Buchanan as President.

Let no guilty man escape if it can be avoided. Be specially vigilant-or instruct those engaged in the prosecution of fraud to be-against all who insinuate that they have high influence to protect-or to protect them. No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.

As soon as slavery fired upon the flag it was felt, we all felt, even those who did not object to slaves, that slavery must be destroyed. We felt that it was a stain to the Union that men should be bought and sold like cattle.

When news of the surrender first reached our lines our men commenced firing a salute of a hundred guns in honor of the victory. I at once sent word, however, to have it stopped. The Confederates were now our prisoners, and we did not want to exult over their downfall.

My failures have been errors in judgment, not of intent.

There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.

We're teachers, and we have a commitment." "Commitment to what-to live and die in this hellhole, when we can leave and live like other people?

There are many men who would have done better than I did under the circumstances in which I found myself. If I had never held command, if I had fallen, there were 10,000 behind who would have followed the contest to the end and never surrendered the Union.

The theory of government changes with general progress.

Let no guilty man escape, if it can he avoided. . . . No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.

The right of revolution is an inherent one. When people are oppressed by their government, it is a natural right they enjoy to relieve themselves of oppression, if they are strong enough, whether by withdrawal from it, or by overthrowing it and substituting a government more acceptable.