“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
“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.”
―
George Washington
“There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy”
―
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
“We began a contest for liberty ill provided with the means for the war, relying on our patriotism to supply the deficiency. We expected to encounter many wants and distressed… we must bear the present evils and fortitude…”
―
George Washington
“Where are our Men of abilities? Why do they not come forth to save their Country?”
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George Washington
“the great mass of our Citizens require only to understand matters rightly, to form right decisions.”
―
George Washington
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”
―
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
“...if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.”
―
George Washington
“A knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”
―
George Washington
“if to please the people,we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The rest is in the hands of God.”
―
George Washington
