“The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
―
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
“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”
―
George Washington
“Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person’s own mind, than on the externals in the world.”
―
George Washington
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
―
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
“Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion –- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven."
―
George Washington
“Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.”
―
George Washington
“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
“Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all”
―
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
“George Washington famously warned against ... 'ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear”
―
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
“Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precepts.”
―
George Washington
