“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.”
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George Washington
“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.”
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George Washington
“Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precepts.”
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George Washington
“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.”
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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.”
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George Washington
“Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life. (Address to Congress on Resigning Commission Dec 23, 1783)”
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George Washington
“Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?" Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”
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George Washington
“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”
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George Washington
“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”
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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
“A man ought not to value himself of his achievements or rare qualities of wit, much less of his riches, virtue or kindred.”
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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.”
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George Washington
