Sourced

• War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed.
  • First Inaugural Address (March 4, 1897)

• The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.
  • Letter (December 21, 1898)

• 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 earth.
  • Speech delivered at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York (September 5, 1901)

• Expositions are the timekeepers of progress.
  • Speech delivered at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York (September 5, 1901)

• Let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not in conflict; and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war.
  • Speech delivered at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, New York (September 5, 1901)

Attributed

• I could not have told where those damned islands were within 2,000 miles."
  • McKinley's supposed reaction to the capture of Manila, as quoted in Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts, pages 360-361

Disputed

• There was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died.
  • Attributed in 1903 by James F. Rusling, as part of an 1899 speech to a religious delegation. Disputed in Lewis Gould (1980) The Presidency of William McKinley.

About William McKinley

• I am deeply affected by the news of the untimely death of President McKinley. I hasten to express the deepest and most heartfelt sympathy of the German people to the great American nation. Germany mourns with American for her noble son, who lost his life while he was fulfilling his duty to his country and people.
  • William II, German Emperor. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 396.

• The ocean is not wide enough to hold all the sympathy that is streaming from the Old World to the New.
  • Austrian response to McKinley's death by Vienna newspaper Neues Wiener Tageblatt. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 397.

• Mr. McKinley was one of the most popular figures in American history and one of the best representatives of American ideals. On account of the extraordinary purity of Mr. McKinley's character, the American people will find sympathy wherever civilized men dwell. Opinion in Europe regarding Pan-Americanism may possibly be divided, but it is comprehensible from the American point of view. Mr. McKinley died firmly believing that the work he had begun in domestic and foreign policy would find suitable instruments for its continuation.
  • Russian response to McKinley's death by St. Petersburg newspaper Boerse Gazette. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 397.

• I learn with deep pain that his Excellency Mr. McKinley has succumbed to the deplorable attempt on his life. I sympathize with you with all my heart in this calamity which thus strikes at your dearest affections and which bereaves the great American nation of a President so justly respected and loved.
  • President of France Émile Loubet telegraph to Mrs. McKinley. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 398.

• I have been deeply shocked by this crime. President McKinley was not a ruler of exclusive or aristocratic tendencies. He was a good friend of the people, a genuine democrat in the best sense of the word. With regard to Mexico, President McKinley had ever evidenced such friendly sentiments that his death will be mourned in this country hardly less keenly than in the United States.
  • President of Mexico Porfirio Díaz. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 398.

• All our people loved their dead President. His kindly nature and lovable traits of character, and his amiable consideration for all about him will long live in the minds and hearts of his countrymen. He loved them in return with such patriotism and unselfishness that in this hour of their grief and humiliation he would say to them: 'It is God's will; I am content. If there is a lesson in my life of death, let it be taught to those who still live, and leave the destiny of their country in their keeping.' Let us, then, as our dead is buried out of our sight, seek for the lessons and the admonitions that may be suggested by the life and death which constitutes our theme.
  • Former President Grover Cleveland, Address to the students of Princeton University. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 409.

• When the history of his time is written he will stand forth as the great figure in the years which have been so crowded with events. He gained the entire confidence of the nation by his patriotism, wisdom and ability, just as he won its love by his kindness and goodness to all men.
  • Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 413.

Unsourced

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

• Illiteracy must be banished from the land if we shall attain that high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations of the world which, under Providence, we ought to achieve.

• Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles.

• 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.

• Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law.

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

• Without competition we would be clinging to the clumsy antiquated processes of farming and manufacture and the methods of business of long ago, and the twentieth would be no further advanced than the eighteenth century.