Top 50+ George Washington Quotes

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george washington quotes

Who is George Washington

George Washington was born on the 22nd February 1732 and was one of the founding fathers of the United States of America. He rose to prominence in the French and Indian War, after which he was elected to the Continental Congress, where he was made the Commanding General of the Continental Army. Perhaps his most notable military achievement was leading the forces that caused the defeat of the British at the Siege of Yorktown, effectively ending the American War of Independence.

Washington was elected President twice and helped to create an effective government, remaining impartial at times but characterised by strong decisions when required. He was a key figure in adopting the US constitution and presided over the 1787 Constitutional Convention. He has been ranked by many as one of the greatest presidents that the United States has ever had and is immortalised in monuments, art and currency.

It is important to note that Washington, like many contemporaries, owned slaves and through desire to preserve unity, supported measures to ensure slavery was protectd. However, it appears he later became concerned with slavery and gave his slaves freedom in his will, when he passed away on the 14th December 1799.

His quotations mirror the powerful statements he made and his skills as an orator.

George Washington Quotes

1. “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.”

2. “My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.”

3. “True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.”

4. “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.”

5. “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”

6. “I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one’s life, the foundation of happiness or misery.”
7. “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.”

8. “The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.”

9. “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.”

10. “Lenience will operate with greater force, in some instances than rigor. It is therefore my first wish to have all of my conduct distinguished by it.”

11. “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.”

12. “The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.”

13. “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

14. “The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.”

15. “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.”

16. “Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.”

17. “Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.”

18. “Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one.”

19. “It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”

20. “Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.”

21. “Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.”

22. “Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”

23. “War – An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.”

24. “A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.”

25. “There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.”

26. “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.”

27. “I beg you be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”

28. “I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman’s cares.”

29. “The Constitution which at any time exists, ’till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People is sacredly obligatory upon all.”

30. “To form a new Government, requires infinite care, and unbounded attention; for if the foundation is badly laid the superstructure must be bad.”

31. “The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded. Their indiscriminate violence prostrates for the time all public authority, and its consequences are sometimes extensive and terrible.”

32. “The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field — the object is attained — and it now remains to be my earnest wish & prayer, that the Citizens of the United States could make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them.”

33. “But if we are to be told by a foreign power what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.”

34. “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.”

35. “Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

36. “I do not mean to exclude altogether the idea of patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But I will venture to assert, that a great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.”

37. “The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world.”

38. “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

39. “It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.”
40. “The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.”

41. “No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass.”

42. “Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”

43. “Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations.”

44. “I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.”

45. “I hope, some day or another, we shall become a storehouse and granary for the world.”

46. “The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.”

47. “Jealousy, and local policy mix too much in all our public councils for the good government of the Union. In a words, the confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance.”

48. “I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery.”

49. “I go to the chair of government with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.”

50. “The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity.”

51. “Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths?”

52. “Gambling is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.”

53. “Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.”

54. “We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.”

55. “The Army (considering the irritable state it is in, its suffering and composition) is a dangerous instrument to play with.”

56. “Your love of liberty – your respect for the laws – your habits of industry – and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.”
57. “Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow, but the people will be right at last.”

58. “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.”

59. “The foundation of a great Empire is laid, and I please myself with a persuasion, that Providence will not leave its work imperfect.”

60. “The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreeably to their conscience, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights.”

 

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