“Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature; and in all cases of passion admit reason to govern.”
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George Washington
“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. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.”
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George Washington
“You say there is but one way to worship the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Chief Red Jacket, Seneca Indian Chieftain”
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George Washington
“Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power.”
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George Washington
“I was born a heretic. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Susan B. Anthony, U.S. reformer and suffragist”
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George Washington
Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad Company.”
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George Washington
“Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”
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George Washington
“Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.”
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George Washington
“If the cause is advanced, indifferent is it to me where or in what quarter it happens.”
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George Washington
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those be well-tried before you give them your confidence.”
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George Washington
“Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person’s own mind, than on the externals in the world.”
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George Washington
“Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness.”
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George Washington
