Quotes By George Washington

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

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

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

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

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.

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.

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.

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it - but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority: and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.

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.

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

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.

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

Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government, I have considered the first arrangement of the judicial department as essential to the happiness of our country and to the stability of its' political system--hence the selection of the fittest characters to expound the laws, and dispense justice, has been an invariable object of my anxious concern.

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.