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George Washington 1751-1836 "Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience."
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"Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness."
— letter, Aug. 17, 1779
"There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness."
— First Inaugural Address, Apr. 30, 1789
"Few men have virtue enough to withstand the highest bidder."
— letter, Aug. 17, 1779
"Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light."
— letter to Charles M. Thruston, Aug. 10, 1794
"When one side only of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly."
— letter to Edmund Pendleton, Jan. 22, 1795
"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die."
— address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island, Aug. 27, 1776
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
— Circular to the States, May 9, 1753
"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."
— general orders, Jul. 2, 1776
"For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter."
— address to the officers of the army, Mar. 15, 1783
"I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned."
— letter to Dr. John Cochran, Aug. 16, 1779
"Conscience ... seldom comes to a man's aid while he is in the zenith of health and revelling in pomp and luxury upon illgotten spoils. It is generally the last act of his life, and it comes too late to be of much service to others here, or to himself hereafter."
— letter to John P. Posey, Aug. 7, 1782
"When a people shall have become incapable of governing themselves, and fit for a master, it is of little consequence from what quarter he comes."
— letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, Apr. 28, 1788
"System in all things should be aimed at; for in execution it renders every thing more easy."
— letter to George Washington Parke Custis, Jan. 7, 1798
"A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool."
— letter to Eleanor Parke Custis, Jan. 16, 1795
"The views of men can only be known, or guessed at, by their words or actions."
— letter to Patrick Henry, Jan. 15, 1799
"It is much easier at all times to prevent an evil than to rectify mistakes."
— letter to James McHenry, Aug. 10, 1798
"An army of asses led by a lion is vastly superior to an army of lions led by an ass."
— attributed, The Long Gray Line
