George Washington Quotes
-
War - An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.
-
Integrity and firmness is all I can promise; these, be the voyage long or short, never shall forsake me though I be deserted by all men. For of the consolations which are to be derived from these (under any circumstances) the world cannot deprive me.
-
The United States enjoy a scene of prosperity and tranquility under the new government that could hardly have been hoped for.
-
A bad war is fought with a good mind.
-
Good company will always be found much less expensive than bad.
-
In his address of 19 September 1796, given as he prepared to leave office, President George Washington spoke about the importance of morality to the country's well-being: Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. . . . Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue?
-
The Army, as usual, are without pay; and a great part of the soldiery without shirts; and though the patience of them is equally threadbare, the States seem perfectly indifferent to their cries.
-
I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.
-
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
-
Submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial style, though it may carry conviction, is always accompanied with disgust.
-
There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
-
It will at least be a recommendation to the proposed constitution that it is provided with more checks and barriers against the introduction of tyranny, and those of a nature less liable to be surmounted, than any government hitherto instituted among mortals hath possessed.
-
If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash.
-
Paper money has had the effect in your State that it ever will have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open a door to every species of fraud and injustice.
-
By an ambitious chieftain, aiming only to aggrandize himself and establish his power, the subject might have been regarded in a different light; but the designs and actions of Washington centred in nobler objects, the freedom, tranquillity, and happiness of his country, in which he was to participate equally with every other citizen, neither seeking nor expecting any other preeminence than that of having been an instrument in the hand of Providence.
-
Being no bigot myself, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct, plainest, easiest and least liable to exception.
-
We ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.
-
We can not guarantee success, we can strive to deserve it.
-
A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.
-
My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so.
-
Your love of liberty -- your respect for the laws -- your habits of industry -- and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.
-
Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.
-
I commend you, however, for passing the time in as merry a manner as you possibly could; it is assuredly better to go laughing than crying thro' the rough journey of life.
-
A small knowledge of human nature will convince us, that, with far the greatest part of mankind, interest is the governing principle... Few men are capable of making a continual sacrifice of all views of private interest, or advantage, to the common good. It is vain to exclaim against the depravity of human nature on this account; the fact is so, the experience of every age and nation has proved it and we must in a great measure, change the constitution of man, before we can make it otherwise. No institution, not built on the presumptive truth of these maxims can succeed.