“Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society.”
―
George Washington
“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
―
George Washington
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
―
George Washington
“[T]he gradual extension of our settlements will as certainly cause the savage, as the wolf, to retire; both being beasts of prey, though they differ in shape.”
―
George Washington
“Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession. ”
―
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
“no punishment, in my opinion, is to great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin”
―
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.”
―
George Washington
“Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.”
―
George Washington
“The reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.”
―
George Washington
“I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.”
―
George Washington
