George Washington Quotes

If we desire to avoid insult,

we must be able to repel it;

if we desire to secure peace,

one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity,

it must be known,

that we are at all times ready for War.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone,

and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

True friendship is a plant of slow growth,

and must undergo and withstand,

the shocks of adversity,

before it is entitled to the appellation.

When we assumed the Soldier,

we did not lay aside the Citizen.

It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being.

My observation is that

whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty...

it is worse executed by two persons,

and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

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.

There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage,

than the promotion of science and literature.

Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind,

banished from the earth.

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress;

therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken

until after they shall have deliberated

upon the subject and authorized such a measure.

Arbitrary power is most easily established

on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

Mankind,

when left to themselves,

are unfit for their own government.

Laws made by common consent

must not be trampled on by individuals.

Let us with caution indulge the supposition

that morality can be maintained without religion.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that

national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.

Let us raise a standard to

which the wise and honest can repair;

the rest is in the hands of God.

Be courteous to all,

but intimate with few,

and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain

what I consider the most enviable of all titles,

the character of an honest man.

Liberty,

when it begins to take root,

is a plant of rapid growth.