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John A. Macdonald Quotations

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About Macdonald

John W. Bengough - "Grip still has a Sir John But the Grand Old Face has gone." - Grip, on the death of John A. Macdonald, who was often caricatured in its pages, June 20, 1891
Donald G. Creighton - "He felt he could go on beating Blake, every four or five years, until the end of the chapter." - John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain, 471, referring to Macdonald, 1955

By Macdonald

John A. Macdonald - "A public man should have no resentments." - to his secretary, Joseph Pope, Pope, Sir John A. Macdonald vindicated, 1912
John A. Macdonald - "A sweet smile from the teeth outwards." - to Joseph Pope referring to John Abbott, M. Pope, ed., Public servant (1960)
John A. Macdonald - "Anybody may support me when I am right. What I want is a man that will support me when I am wrong." - to Senator Dickey, of Nova Scotia, at Confederation; also applied to Toronto Mail when it became independent; Biggar, Anecdotal Life of Macdonald, states he said it to George M. Grant, of Nova Scotia, later Principal of Queen's University, 1867, L.J. Burpee, Oxford Encyclopedia of Canadian History, 1926
John A. Macdonald - "As for myself, my course is clear. A British subject I was born - a British subject I will die. With my utmost effort, with my latest breath, will I oppose the ‘veiled treason’ which attempts by sordid means and mercenary proffers to lure our people from their allegiance." Last electoral address, Ottawa, February 7, 1891
John A. Macdonald - "Consciousness of power, my dear." - to his wife, re transformation of George Foster when he became Speaker, 1887, Sir Joseph Pope, Public servant (1960)
John A. Macdonald - "Elections are a lot like horse races, in that you know a lot more about them the next day."
John A. Macdonald - "Even if all the territory Mr. Mowat asks for were awarded to Ontario, there is not one stick of timber, one acre of land, or one lump of lead, iron or gold that does not belong to the Dominion, or to the people who purchased from the Dominion Government." - speech in Toronto, on the Ontario boundary dispute with Manitoba, May 30, 1882
John A. Macdonald - "Give me better wood and I will make you a better cabinet." - reply made to criticisms of his choice of cabinet ministers
John A. Macdonald - "Had I but consented to take the popular side in Upper Canada, I could have ridden the Protestant horse much better than George Brown, and could have had an overwhelming majority. But I willingly sacrificed my own popularity for the good of the country, and did equal justice to all men." - letter to a friend, Ottawa, April 20, 1869
John A. Macdonald - "Harry, my boy, never write a letter if you can help it, and never destroy one.
John A. Macdonald - "He shall hang though every dog in Quebec bark in his favour." - 1885, to a friend who urged that Riel be shown mercy (attributed)
John A. Macdonald - "Hiving the Grits." - defining the redistribution of Ontario seats and alteration of boundaries to disadvantage of Liberals, April, 1882
John A. Macdonald - "I am afraid I shall have to give you the answer of the Irish servant who got into a place where the food was not as it should be - 'there's too much to swallow and too little to eat'." - to Madame D
John A. Macdonald - "I carried my musket in '37." - recounted in his later years, Joseph Pope, Memoirs of Sir John A. Macdonald, Vol. I (1894)
John A. Macdonald - "I could lick that man Smith quicker than hell could frizzle a feather." - said in lobby, House of Commons, after Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona) stated he could no longer 'conscientiously' support the government on the Pacific Railway scandal, November 5, 1873
John A. Macdonald - "I get sick... not because of drink [but because] I am forced to listen to the ranting of my honourable opponent." - During the election of 1863, he threw up during a campaign speech and when his opponent pointed this out, Macdonald shot back with this answer.
John A. Macdonald - "I have no accord with the desire expressed in some quarters that by any mode whatever there should be an attempt made to oppress the one language or to render it inferior to the other - I believe that would be impossible if it were tried, and it would be foolish and wicked if it were possible." - [[February 17 1890, House of Commons, Debates, 745
John A. Macdonald - "I hope the practice of conferring honours will not degenerate into a matter of course and a number of honours be bestowed upon each change of Ministers." - memorandum to Governor-General, March 6, 1879
John A. Macdonald - [I hope that Britain and Canada] "will have a healthy and cordial alliance. Instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, England will have in us a friendly nation, a subordinate but still a powerful people to stand by her in North America in peace or in war." - 1865
John A. Macdonald - "I remember, however, when one of us was sounding the praises of the Victoria climate, Sir John agreed, but added as an aside, 'The day was always in the afternoon.'" - on a visit to Victoria, as recalled by Sir Joseph Pope, quoted by William Toye in A Book of Canada, 1962
John A. Macdonald - "I say that there is a deliberate conspiracy, by force, by fraud, or by both, to force Canada into the American Union." - speech, Academy of Music, Toronto, February 17, 1891
John A. Macdonald - "I would be quite willing, personally, to leave that whole country a wilderness for the next half-century but I fear if Englishmen do not go there, Yankees will." - letter to Sir Edward W. Watkin, March 27, 1865 (Library and Archives Canada)
John A. Macdonald - "If Canada is to remain a country separate from the United States it is of great importance to her that they (the United States) should not get behind us by right or by force, and intercept the route to the Pacific. But in any other point of view, it seems to me that the country is of no present value to Canada. We have unoccupied land enough to absorb immigration for many years, and the opening up of the Saskatchewan would do to Canada what the Prairie lands of Illinois are doing now - drain away our youth and our strength." - letter to Sir Edward W. Watkin, March 27, 1865 (Library and Archives Canada)
John A. Macdonald - "If I had had a university education, I should probably have entered upon the path of literature and acquired distinction therein." - Sir Joseph Pope, The day of Sir John A. Macdonald, 1915
John A. Macdonald - "If I had my way, they should all be highly respectable parties whom I could send to the penitentiary if I liked." - to Richard Cartwright, quoted in Cartwright, Reminiscences, 304, 1870
John A. Macdonald - "If you had a lit-tIe more wood, and a lit-tIe more water, and here and there a hill, I think the prospect would be improved." - on transcontinental trip via C.P.R.; to a Regina citizen who asked what he thought of the 'prospect', 1886
John A. Macdonald - "In the Upper House, - the controlling and regulating, but not the initiating, branch (for we know that here as in England, to the Lower House will practically belong the initiation of matters of great public interest), in the House which has the sober second thought in legislation." - Confederation debates, February 6, 1865
John A. Macdonald - "Joe, if you would know the depth of meanness of human nature, you have got to be a Prime Minister running a general election." - to Joseph Pope during the general electio, Feb. , 1891, Pope, Public servant (1960)
John A. Macdonald - "Let us be English or let us be French... but above all let us be Canadians."
John A. Macdonald - "My Dear George: I purpose, if you have no objection, to knock you into a cocked hat at the opening of Parliament next week. Yours always?" - letter to George Kirkpatrick, chosen Speaker; ; referring to the headgear worn by the Speaker, February 8, 1883
John A. Macdonald - "My greatest discovery was Thompson." - attributed; on Sir John Thompson, in Dictionary of national biography 1898/9, Vol., 19
John A. Macdonald - "Pacific in trouble; you should be here." - cablegram to Sir Charles Tupper in London, re CPR, December 1, 1883
John A. Macdonald - "Politics is a game requiring great coolness and an utter abnegation of prejudice and personal feeling." - letter to Sidney Smith, October 13, 1860 (Library and Archives Canada)
John A. Macdonald - "Send me better men to deal with, and I will be a better man." - to a farmer elector; inscription on his statue in Kingston, unveiled October 23, 1895, 1912, Cartwright, Reminiscences, 1912
John A. Macdonald - "That fellow Smith is the biggest liar I ever met." - on Donald A. Smith (Lord Strathcona); House of Commons, Debates, May 10, 1878
John A. Macdonald - "The great reason why I have been able to beat Brown is that I have been able to look a little ahead, while he could on no occasion forego the temptation of a temporary triumph." - letter to M.C. Cameron, January 3, 1872
John A. Macdonald - "The question is, how many pounds of powder put under a bull's tail would blow his horns off?" - to a Col. Playfair who was laying siege to Sir John A. in order to be made a road superintendent, June 30, 1964 Vancouver Sun
John A. Macdonald - "The Senate must be an independent House, having a free action of its own, for it is only valuable as being a regulating body, calmly considering the legislation initiated by the popular branch, and preventing any hasty or ill considered legislation" - Confederation Debates
John A. Macdonald - "The statement that has been made so often that this is a conquered country is a propos de rien. Whether it was conquered or ceded, we have a constitution now under which all British subjects are in a position of absolute equality, having equal rights of every kind - of language, of religion, of property and of person. There is no paramount race in this country; we are all British subjects, and those who are not English are none the less British subjects on that account." - House of Commons, Debates, February 17, 1890
John A. Macdonald - "The time has come, I think, when we must choose men for their qualifications rather than for their locality." - letter to J.A. Chapleau, June 6, 1888
John A. Macdonald - "The word 'protection' itself must be taboo, but we can ring the changes on National Policy, paying the U.S. in their own coin." - letter to David L. MacPherson, February 20, 1872
John A. Macdonald - "There is no maxim which experience teaches more clearly than this, that you must yield to the times. Resistance may be protracted until it produces revolution. Resistance was protracted in this country until it produced rebellion." - in House of Commons, November 10, 1854 Toronto Globe
John A. Macdonald - "There may be obstructions, local differences may intervene, but it matters not — the wheel is now revolving, and we are only the fly on the wheel, we cannot delay it. The union of the colonies of British America under one sovereign is a fixed fact." - in the House of Commons, 1864
John A. Macdonald - "There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties were divided - politics became a mere struggle for office." - speech at London, Ontario, 1860 attributed incorrectly to him as 'Party is merely a struggle for power.'
John A. Macdonald - "These are good bunkum arguments." - letter to Sidney Smith, December 6 1857
John A. Macdonald - "They are to be purely a civil, not a military body, with as little gold lace, fuss, and fine feathers as possible, not a crack cavalry regiment, but an efficient police force for the rough and ready - particularly ready - enforcement of law and justice." - House of Commons Debates; introducing the bill establishing the North West Mounted Police, May 3, 1873
John A. Macdonald - "Thompson has just two faults. He is a little too fond of satire, and a little too much of a Nova Scotian." - on Sir John Thompson, circa 1885-91, Cambridge history of the British Empire, VI, 1930
John A. Macdonald - "Those who cared to be protected at all, wanted all the protection they could get. They were like the squaw who said of whisky, that 'a little too much was just enough'." - in debate on introduction of National Policy, 1878, Biggar, Anecdotal life (1891)
John A. Macdonald - "War will come some day between England and the United States and India can do us yeoman's service by sending an army of Sikhs, Ghoorkas and Belochees & c, & c, across the Pacific to San Francisco" - and holding that beautiful and immoral city with the surrounding California as security for Montreal and Canada., letter to J.S. Maine, Calcutta, April 9, 1867
John A. Macdonald - "We acted together, dined at public places together, played euchre in crossing the Atlantic, and went into society in England together. And yet on the day after he resigned we resumed our old positions and ceased to speak." - after Brown's resignation from the Cabinet, December, 1865
John A. Macdonald - "We are all mere petty provincial politicians at present; perhaps by and by some of us will rise to the level of national statesmen." - statement to Governor-General Monck at time of Confederation
John A. Macdonald - "We are all miserable sinners." - at a political meeting after Liberal Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie, finished a scathing attack on the Pacific Scandal. Macdonald drove home his point by drinking the rest of the water in a glass that Mackenzie had just half-emptied., 1878
John A. Macdonald - "We must protect the rights of minorities, and the rich are always fewer in number than the poor." - At the Quebec Conference of 1864 when they were debating the construction of the Senate.
John A. Macdonald - "We, in Canada, have got into the habit of delivering lectures and essays in parliament. Well, these essays we can all find in books, and it is merely lecture and water that we get as a rule, in long speeches." - speech, 1861, E. B. Biggar, Anecdotal Life (1891)
John A. Macdonald - "Whatever you do adhere to the Union - we are a great country, and shall become one of the greatest in the universe if we preserve it; we shall sink into insignificance and adversity if we suffer it to be broken." - speech, 1861, quoted in E.B. Biggar, Anecdotal life (1891)
John A. Macdonald - "When fortune empties her chamberpot on your head, smile - and say 'we are going to have a summer shower'." Attributed, circa 1875
John A. Macdonald - "With my utmost effort, with my latest breath I will oppose the 'veiled treason' which attempts by sordid means and mercenary proffers to lure our people from their allegiance." - speech to the electors of Canada on commercial union with U.S.; the phrase 'veiled treason' is from Disraeli, February 7, 1891
John A. Macdonald - "Yes, In my Canada the rich will always be a minority." - When asked if he believed in minority rights.
John A. Macdonald - "Yes, Protection has done so much for me I must do something for Protection." - to Goldwin Smith on the eve of 1878 election; Smith in letter to Toronto Globe, September 23, 1895
John A. Macdonald - "Yes, but the people would prefer John A. drunk to George Brown sober." Responding to a heckler.