“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation. ”
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George Washington
“We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience. ”
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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 hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.”
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George Washington
“A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?”
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George Washington
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. Albert Einstein, German-born American physicist”
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George Washington
“I was sorry to see the gloomy picture which you drew of the affairs of your Country in your letter of December; but I hope events have not turned out so badly as you then apprehended. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes, that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far, that we should never again see their religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of Society.
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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
“George Washington famously warned against ... 'ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear”
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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
“Be not glad at the misfortune of another, though he may be your enemy.”
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George Washington
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”
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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
