“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
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
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George Washington
“Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.
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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
“It is absolutely necessary... for me to have persons that can think for me, as well as execute orders.”
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George Washington
“There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy”
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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.”
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George Washington
“It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.”
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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
“Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect - We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our own Country's Honor, all call upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions - The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny meditated against them. Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and shew the whole world, that a Freeman contending for Liberty on his own ground is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.”
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George Washington
“Do not suffer your good nature [...] to say yes when you ought to say no; remember that it is a public not a private cause that is to be injured or benefitted by your choice”
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George Washington
“Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.”
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George Washington
