“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”
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George Washington
“Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?" Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”
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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
“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
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George Washington
“A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.”
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George Washington
“The common and continual mischief's [sic] of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion.”
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George Washington
“A knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”
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George Washington
“This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. John Adams, U.S. President”
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George Washington
“I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.”
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George Washington
Being Set at meat Scratch not, neither Spit, Cough, or blow your Nose except there's a Necessity for it.”
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George Washington
“A special act of Congress enabled King to take his oath of office in Cuba—the only President or Vice President to be sworn in outside the United States—later in March. King returned home to Alabama in early April and died two days later, the only Vice President to never make it to the national capital during his term of office.”
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George Washington
“no punishment, in my opinion, is to great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin”
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George Washington
“George Washington famously warned against ... 'ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear”
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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.”
―
George Washington
