Top 100 Ulysses's Quotes
#1. Abraham Lincoln went through 12 generals before he got Ulysses S. Grant. He had never done a Civil War before.
Marianne Williamson
#2. During the Civil War, on hearing complaints that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant drank alcohol to excess Find out what Grant drinks and send a barrel of it to each of my other generals!
Abraham Lincoln
#3. I read the book [My Life by Bill Clinton] completely. And I think it compares very favorably with Ulysses S. Grant's gold standard of presidential autobiographies.
Dan Rather
#4. I would rather go to bed with Lillian Russell stark naked than Ulysses S Grant in full military regalia.
Mark Twain
#5. All suburban housing developments look alike, and besides, every Yankee who ever crossed the Potomac except Ulysses S. Grant got lost as soon as he reached the Virginia side.
Charles McCarry
#6. Being a nerd, which is to say going to far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know. For me, the spark that turns an acquaintance into a friend has usually been kindled by some shared enthusiasm like detective novels or Ulysses S. Grant.
Sarah Vowell
#7. People who shop at Barnes and Noble voted Ulysses the best novel of the last century, and who's to tell them different? There was a point when I would have liked to, but apparently that's just because I'm a bitch.
Dale Peck
#8. There are but two parties now: traitors and patriots. And I want hereafter to be ranked with the latter and, I trust, the stronger party.
Ulysses S. Grant
#10. He's meant to be that classic Homer, Ulysses, Hercules - a character who goes out or has some gift of some kind. He goes on a journey of discovery and part of that is falling into darkness - the temptations of life.
Robert Redford
#12. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions.
Ulysses S. Grant
#13. I desire the good-will of all, whether hitherto my friends or not.
Ulysses S. Grant
#14. The most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticized.
Ulysses S. Grant
#15. 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
#16. 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
#17. Though people may read more into Ulysses than I ever intended, who is to say that they are wrong: do any of us know what we are creating?Which of us can control our scribblings? They are the script of one's personality like your voice or your walk
James Joyce
#18. In one particular chapter in Ulysses, James Joyce imitates every major writing style that's been used by English and American writers over the last 700 years - starting with Beowulf and Chaucer and working his way up through the Renaissance, the Victorian era and on into the 20th century.
Frederick Lenz
#19. Whatever there is of greatness in the United States, or indeed in any other country, is due to labor. The laborer is the author of all greatness and wealth. Without labor there would be no government, no leading class, and nothing to preserve.
Ulysses S. Grant
#20. 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
#21. Lee's army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.
Ulysses S. Grant
#22. The Colors, The Iliad, Ulysses, Metamorphosis, the Theban plays, The Draconic Labels, Anabasis, and restricted works like The Count of Monte Cristo, Lord of the Flies, Lady Casterly's Penance, 1984, and The Great Gatsby. I
Pierce Brown
#24. The fact is I think I am a verb instead of a personal pronoun. A verb is anything that signifies to be; to do; or to suffer. I signify all three.
Ulysses S. Grant
#25. The work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.
[on James Joyce's Ulysses]
Virginia Woolf
#26. It is men who wait to be selected, and not those who seek, from whom we may expect the most efficient service.
Ulysses S. Grant
#28. In respect of the recurrent emergence of the theme of sex in the minds of [Joyce's] characters, it must always be remembered that his locale was Celtic and his season spring.
John Munro Woolsey
#29. War is progressive because all instruments of war are progressive.
Ulysses S. Grant
#31. No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works.
Ulysses S. Grant
#32. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.
Ulysses S. Grant
#33. My judgment now is that he was vacillating and undecided in his actions.
Ulysses S. Grant
#34. I only knew what was in my mind, and I wished to express it clearly
Ulysses S. Grant
#37. And why is Grant so solemn today upon our great achievement, except he knows this unmeaning inhuman planet will need our warring imprint to give it value, and that our civil war, the devastating manufacture of the bones of our sons, is but a war after a war, a war before a war.
E.L. Doctorow
#39. Let no guilty man escape, if it can he avoided ... No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.
Ulysses S. Grant
#40. To maintain peace in the future it is necessary to be prepared for war.
Ulysses S. Grant
#41. Quit thinking about what Bobby Lee's gonna do to us and start thinking about what we're going to do to him.
Ulysses S. Grant
#42. In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten then he who continues the attack wins.
Ulysses S. Grant
#43. Forget physics, forget organic chem, forget reading James Joyce's Ulysses - organizing your time is one of the biggest challenges you'll face in your academic career.
Stefanie Weisman
#44. The darkest day of my life was the day I heard of Lincoln's assassination. I did not know what it meant. Here was the rebellion put down in the field, and starting up in the gutters...
Ulysses S. Grant
#45. I would like to call your attention to ... an evil that, if allowed to continue, will probably lead to great trouble ... It is the accumulation of vast amounts of untaxed church property.
Ulysses S. Grant
#46. I felt that 15,000 men on the 8th would be more effective than 50,000 a month later.
Ulysses S. Grant
#47. And Ulysses stopped his ears against the siren's song for it was death.
V.E Schwab
#48. 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.
Ulysses S. Grant
#49. Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'
Salman Rushdie
#50. I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.
Ulysses S. Grant
#51. Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your hearts, and practice them in your lives.
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 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
#54. The enemy had been much demoralized by his defeats at Champion's Hill and the Big Black, and I believed he would not make much effort to hold Vicksburg.
Ulysses S. Grant
#55. I know only two tunes. One of them is 'Yankee Doodle' the other isn't.
Ulysses S. Grant
#56. 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.
Ulysses S. Grant
#57. Twenty-six letters: Marjorie Morningstar or Ulysses.
The man-made world means exactly that. There isn't an inch of it that doesn't have to be dealt with, figured out, executed. And it's waiting for you to decide what it's going to look like.
Chip Kidd
#58. I suppose this work is part of the devil that is in us all.
Ulysses S. Grant
#59. Village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. Boys enjoy the misery of their companions, at least village boys in that day did, and in later life I have found that all adults are not free from the peculiarity.
Ulysses S. Grant
#60. I never heard him abuse an enemy. Some of the cruel things said about President Lincoln, particularly in the North, used to pierce him to the heart; but never in my presence did he evince a revengeful disposition.
Ulysses S. Grant
#62. Declare Church and State forever separate and distinct, but each free within their proper spheres, and that all church property shall bear its own proportion of taxation.
Ulysses S. Grant
#63. Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true.
Ulysses S. Grant
#64. 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
#65. James Joyce is a cul-de-sac. [Ulysses is] ... an example how literature branched out and went into, lost itself in nowhere, no man's land.
Werner Herzog
#66. Our great modern Republic. May those who seek the blessings of its institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose.
Ulysses S. Grant
#68. 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
#69. It does look like a very good exercise. But what is the little white ball for?
Ulysses S. Grant
#71. I smiled at him. America, I said quietly, just like that. What is it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that true? That's a fact.
James Joyce
#72. I knew the enemy were ready to break and only wanted a little encouragement from us to go quickly and join their friends who had started earlier.
Ulysses S. Grant
#73. Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor.
Ulysses S. Grant
#74. If you think of all the enduring stories in the world, they're of journeys. Whether it's 'Don Quixote' or 'Ulysses,' there's always this sense of a quest - of a person going away to be tested, and coming back.
Robyn Davidson
#75. Correspondents of the press were ever on hand to hear every word dropped, and were not always disposed to report correctly what did not confirm their preconceived notions, either about the conduct of the war or the individuals concerned in it.
Ulysses S. Grant
#76. 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
#77. This is the most beautiful thing we'll ever have to publish. Let us print it if it's the last effort of our lives!
-on publishing Ulysses
Margaret Anderson
#78. The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who have helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.
Ulysses S. Grant
#79. 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
#81. But the Nation had already become restless and discouraged at the prolongation of the war, and many believed that it would never terminate except by compromise.
Ulysses S. Grant
#82. Anything is better than indecision. We must decide. If I am wrong, we shall soon find out and can do the other thing. But not to decide wastes both time and money and may ruin everything.
Ulysses S. Grant
#83. 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.
Ulysses S. Grant
#84. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
Ulysses S. Grant
#85. 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
#86. The problem for us was to move forward to a decisive victory, or our cause was lost.
Ulysses S. Grant
#87. Cheap cigars come in handy; they stifle the odor of cheap politicians.
Ulysses S. Grant
#88. England and the United States are natural allies, and should be the best of friends.
Ulysses S. Grant
#89. And Ulysses stopped up his ears against the siren's song," recited Victor, pulling the plugs from his own ears as Serena collapsed to the dirt lot, "for it was death.
V.E Schwab
#90. Ulysses was not comely, but he was eloquent,
Yet he fired two goddesses of the sea with love
Soren Kierkegaard
#91. 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.
Ulysses S. Grant
#95. 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
#96. It was my fortune, or misfortune, to be called to the office of Chief Executive without any previous political training.
Ulysses S. Grant
#97. Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any sort of fondness for war, and I have never advocated it, except as a means of peace.
Ulysses S. Grant
#98. 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.
Ulysses S. Grant
#99. If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail.
Ulysses S. Grant
#100. 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.
Ulysses S. Grant
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