“...overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.”
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George Washington
“Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show 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
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”
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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
“Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. George Washington, Revolutionary War General and U.S. President”
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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
“If the cause is advanced, indifferent is it to me where or in what quarter it happens.”
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George Washington
“LIBERTY, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”
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George Washington
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.”
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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.”
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George Washington
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
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George Washington
“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
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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.”
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George Washington
“The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to it animosity or two its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and it's interest.”
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George Washington