Top 100 Ulysses S. Grant Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “War is progressive because all instruments of war are progressive.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

52. “Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

53. “I believe that our Great Maker is preparing the world, in His own good time, to become one nation, speaking one language, and when armies and navies will be no longer required.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

54. “The one thing I never want to see again is a military parade. When I resigned from the army and went to a farm I was happy. When the rebellion came, I returned to the service because it was a duty. I had no thought of rank; all I did was try and make.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

55. “Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, accomplished.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

56. “I would suggest the taxation of all property equally, whether church or corporation, exempting only the last resting place of the dead and possibly, with proper restrictions, church edifices.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

57. “The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

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

— Ulysses S. Grant

59. “Ah, you know my weaknesses – my children and my horses.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

60. “There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

61. “I leave comparisons to history, claiming only that I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people. Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

62. “It will be all right if it turns out all right.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

63. “The distant rear of an army engaged in battle is not the best place from which to judge correctly what is going on in front.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

64. “The United States, knowing no distinction of her own citizens on account of religion or nationality, naturally believes in a civilization the world over which will secure the same universal laws.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

65. “I feel that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy; but I feel it within me that it is to be so.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

66. “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.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

67. “I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

68. “I never wanted to get out of a place as much as I did to get out of the presidency.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

69. “I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

70. “I know only two tunes: one of them is ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the other isn’t.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

71. “You can violate the law. The banks may violate the law and be sustained in doing so. But the President of the United States cannot violate the law.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

72. “Retreat? NO. I propose to attach at daylight and whip them.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

73. “No theory of my own will ever stand in the way of my executing, in good faith, any order I may receive from those in authority over me.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

74. “The cause of the great War of the Rebellion against the United Status will have to be attributed to slavery.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

75. “England and the United States are natural allies, and should be the best of friends.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

76. “The theory of government changes with general progress.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

77. “Jesse has a new dog. You may have noticed that his former pets have been peculiarly unfortunate. When this dog dies every employee in the White House will be at once discharged.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

78. “Really, Mr. Lincoln, I have had enough of this show business.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

79. “The long-continued and useful public service and eminent purity of character of the deceased ex-President will be remembered.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

80. “I’m afraid I’m elected.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

81. “I never was an Abolitionest, not even what could be called anti slavery, but I try to judge farely and honestly and it become patent to my mind early in the rebellion that the North and South could never live at peace with each other except as one nation, and that without Slavery.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

82. “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.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

83. “I never knew what to do with a paper except to put it in a side pocket or pass it to a clerk who understood it better than I did.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

84. “It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

85. “In politics I am growing indifferent – I would like it, if I could now return to my planting and books at home.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

86. “Declare church and state forever separate and distinct; but each free within their proper spheres.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

87. “I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest. Up to that time it had been the policy of our army, certainly of that portion commanded by me, to protect the property of the citizens whose territory was invaded, without regard to their sentiments, whether Union or Secession.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

88. “While a battle is raging one can see his enemy mowed down by the thousand, or the ten thousand, with great composure; but after the battle these scenes are distressing, and one is naturally disposed to do as much to alleviate the suffering of an enemy as a friend.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

89. “The Mississippi was now in our possession from its source to its mouth, except in the immediate front of Vicksburg and of Port Hudson.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

90. “Mr. Lincoln gained influence over men by making them feel that it was a pleasure to serve him. He preferred yielding his own wish to gratify others, rather than to insist upon having his own way. It distressed him to disappoint others. In matters of public duty, however, he had what he wished, but in the least offensive way.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

91. “These reconnoissances were made under the supervision of Captain Robert E. Lee, assisted by Lieutenants P. G. T. Beauregard, Isaac I. Stevens, Z. B. Tower, G. W. Smith, George B. McClellan, and J. G. Foster, of the corps of engineers, all officers who attained rank and fame, on one side or the other, in the great conflict for the preservation of the unity of the nation.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

92. “The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre – what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

93. “The State government of Kentucky at that time was rebel in sentiment, but wanted to preserve an armed neutrality between the North and the South, and the governor really seemed to think the State had a perfect right to maintain a neutral position.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

94. “I do not believe I ever would have the courage to fight a duel. If any man should wrong me to the extent of my being willing to kill him, I would not be willing to give him the choice of weapons with which it should be done, and of the time, place and distance separating us, when I executed him.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

95. “As time passes, people, even of the South, will begin to wonder how it was possible that their ancestors ever fought for or justified institutions which acknowledged the right of property in man.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

96. “Sherman’s army, after all the depletions, numbered about sixty thousand effective men. All weak men had been left to hold the rear, and those remaining were not only well men, but strong and hardy, so that he had sixty thousand as good soldiers as ever trod the earth; better than any European soldiers, because they not only worked like a machine but the machine thought. European armies know very little what they are fighting for, and care less.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

97. “There were churches in that part of Ohio where treason was preached regularly, and where, to secure membership, hostility to the government, to the war and to the liberation of the slaves, was far more essential than a belief in the authenticity or credibility of the Bible. There were men in Georgetown who filled all the requirements for membership in these churches.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

98. “No political party can or ought to exist when one of its corner-stones is opposition to freedom of thought and to the right to worship God “according to the dictate of one’s own conscience,” or according to the creed of any religious denomination whatever.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

99. “The framers of our Constitution firmly believed that a republican government could not endure without intelligence and education generally diffused among the people. The Father of his Country, in his Farewell Address, uses this language: Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”

— Ulysses S. Grant

100. “The problem for us was to move forward to a decisive victory, or our cause was lost.”

— Ulysses S. Grant