“Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.
―
George Washington
“LIBERTY, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”
―
George Washington
“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.”
―
George Washington
“no punishment, in my opinion, is to great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin”
―
George Washington
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
―
George Washington
“To persevere in one's duty, and be silent is the best answer to calumny”
―
George Washington
“The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. ... The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim.”
―
George Washington
“The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.”
―
George Washington
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.”
―
George Washington
“I regret exceedingly that the disputes between the protestants and Roman Catholics should be carried to the serious alarming height mentioned in your letters. Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.
―
George Washington
“Those who have committed no faults want no pardon. We are only defending what we deem our indisputable rights.”
―
George Washington
“the government both in the executive and the legislative branches must carry out in good faith the platforms upon which the party was entrusted with power. But the government is that of the whole people; the party is the instrument through which policies are determined and men chosen to bring them into being. The animosities of elections should have no place in our Government, for government must concern itself alone with the common weal.”
―
George Washington
