“I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.”
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George Washington
“In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people. James Madison, U.S. President”
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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
“If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian. Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist”
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George Washington
“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”
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George Washington
“[death]...the abyss from where no traveler is permitted to return”
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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
“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.”
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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
“Of Congress, "party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day whilst the momentous concerns of an empire...are but secondary considerations," that "business of a trifling nature and personal concernment withdraws their attention from matters of great national moment.”
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George Washington
“I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”
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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
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”
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George Washington
