“Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all”
―
George Washington
“I was born a heretic. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. Susan B. Anthony, U.S. reformer and suffragist”
―
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
“No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.”
―
George Washington
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”
―
George Washington
Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad Company.”
―
George Washington
“Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly, than a recollection of the happy conjuncture of times and circumstances, under which our Republic assumed its rank among the Nations; The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period, the researches of the human mind, after social happiness, have been carried to a great extent, the Treasures of knowledge, acquired by the labours of Philosophers, Sages and Legislatures, through a long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their collected wisdom may be happily applied in the Establishment of our forms of Government; the free cultivation of Letters, the unbounded extension of Commerce, the progressive refinement of Manners, the growing liberality of sentiment... have had a meliorating influence on mankind and increased the blessings of Society. At this auspicious period, the United States came into existence as a Nation, and if their Citizens should not be completely free and happy, the fault will be entirely their own.
―
George Washington
“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.”
―
George Washington
“A knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”
―
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
“I regret exceedingly that the disputes between the protestants and Roman Catholics should be carried to the serious alarming height mentioned in your letters. Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind.
―
George Washington
“Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person’s own mind, than on the externals in the world.”
―
George Washington
