“No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable.
―
George Washington
“A knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”
―
George Washington
“A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.”
―
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.”
―
George Washington
“There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”
―
George Washington
“No people can be bound to acknowledge the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the united States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency”
―
George Washington
“George Washington famously warned against ... 'ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear”
―
George Washington
“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.”
―
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
“It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”
―
George Washington
“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
“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.”
―
George Washington
“Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
―
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
