Top 100 A George Washington Quotes
#1. I think we need people in Washington who really have more of a sense of a George Washington approach to it, which is to serve and go home. I think far too many of both parties see it as a career. And I don't think that's good for our country.
Scott Rigell
#2. when the voters turned away to listen to the teachings of Democracy, the invariable result has been national disaster and humiliation and a retarding of progress.
George Washington Platt
#3. 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.
George Washington
#4. I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who has not deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard, will never yield so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to 'Anarchy' or 'Despotism'.
George Washington
#5. It is hard for anyone who discovers George Washington not to write about him, perhaps because he is so hard to discover and such a surprise when you do.
Edmund Morgan
#6. To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indispensable.
George Washington
#7. It's one thing about insurance, that's a Washington term.
George W. Bush
#8. It is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside than to occupy a cold bleak hill and sleep under frost and snow without cloaths or blankets.
George Washington
#9. Black people have been qualified to be president for hundreds of years. George Washington Carver could have been president. I could go on with a list of black men that were qualified to be the president of the United States. So the Obama victory is progress for white people.
Chris Rock
#10. We have become ninety-nine percent money mad. The method of living at home modestly and within our income, laying a little by systematically for the proverbial rainy day which is due to come, can almost be listed among the lost arts.
George Washington Carver
#11. Never a day passes but that I do myself the honor to commune with some of nature's varied forms.
George Washington Carver
#12. 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?
George Washington
#13. It appears to me, then, little short of a miracle, that the Delegates from so many different States ... should unite in forming a system of national Government, so little liable to well founded objections.
George Washington
#15. Since new developments are the products of a creative mind, we must therefore stimulate and encourage that type of mind in every way possible.
George Washington Carver
#16. It rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-faced coquette dies in celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others, by encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected.
George Washington
#17. In August 1945, a former Army pilot with an artificial leg pitched five and a third innings for Washington against Boston. This would turn out to be Bert Shepard's only major league game, and it remains one of the heartwarming moments in baseball history.
George Vecsey
#18. Even the country's first president chafed at the limits placed on him by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. From the nature of the Constitution, ... I must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.
George Washington
#19. Military arrangement, and movements in consequence, like the mechanism of a clock, will be imperfectand disordered by the want of a part.
George Washington
#20. It is to be lamented that great characters are seldom without a blot.
George Washington
#21. I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery.
George Washington
#22. President George Washington's namesake capital, once a marketplace for slave auctions, is now synonymous with democracy and freedom; so is the iconic Jefferson, who wanted to build an "Empire of Liberty" for the world.
Patrick Mendis
#23. 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.
George Washington
#24. George Washington once wrote that leading by conviction gave him "a consolation within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of." He continued: "The arrows of malevolence, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me.
George W. Bush
#25. All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity.
George Washington
#26. It is in vain, I perceive, to look for ease and happiness in a world of troubles.
George Washington
#27. In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time.
George Washington
#28. There is a Destiny which has the control of our actions, not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature.
George Washington
#29. I commend you, however, for passing the time in as merry a manner as you possibly could; it is assuredly better to go laughing than crying thro' the rough journey of life.
George Washington
#30. A government is like fire, a handy servant, but a dangerous master.
George Washington
#32. Washington is a resigning town. Nothing else holds the special excitement of a rumored resignation.
George P. Bush
#33. Our country's honor calls upon us for a vigorous and manly exertion; and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world.
George Washington
#34. When George Washington ran for election to Virginia's local assembly, the House of Burgesses, in 1758, his campaign team handed out twenty-eight gallons of rum, fifty gallons of rum punch, thirty-four of wine, forty-six of beer, and two of cider - in a county with only 391 voters.
Tom Standage
#35. The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington - wasn't nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.
Malcolm X
#37. I know that my Redeemer lives. Thank God I love humanity, complexion doesn't interest me one single a bit.
George Washington Carver
#38. The signal instances of Providential goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good.
George Washington
#39. It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones.
George Washington
#40. The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.
George Washington
#41. What was done with the seed saved from the India Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sewn again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp.
George Washington
#43. The beating on the tail of the snake may stop his progress a little, but the more vital parts must be struck before his poisonous death-dealing venom will be wiped out.
George Washington Carver
#44. The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.
George Washington
#45. Fantasy is the tendency of Americans, going back to colonial times, to look at the Middle East as a type of fractured mirror of the United States - a type of mirror that could look a lot more like the United States, if, say, a Middle Eastern George Washington would emerge.
Michael Oren
#46. I wish to walk in such a line as will give most general satisfaction.
George Washington
#48. Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.
George Washington
#49. It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.
George Washington
#50. To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.
George Washington
#51. But if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government, and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter ...
George Washington
#52. Be easy and condescending in your deportment to your officers, but not too familiar, lest you subject yourself to a want of respect, which is necessary to support a proper command.
George Washington
#53. The Church says that the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church. Ferdinand Magellan, Portuguese and Spanish explorer
George Washington
#54. A good marriage is really good after serving together in Washington, D.C.
George W. Bush
#55. In the discharge of this trust I will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed toward the organization and administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable.
George Washington
#56. Unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties
George Washington
#57. The propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregard the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained. Inaugural address 1789
George Washington
#58. Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united
with faith in his justice
George Washington Goethals
#59. We should amuse our evening hours of life in cultivating the tender plants, and bringing them to perfection, before they are transplanted to a happier clime.
George Washington
#60. It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.
George Washington
#61. [V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.
George Washington
#62. Now, today is the day we honor, of course, the Presidents, ranging from George Washington, who couldn't tell a lie, to George Bush, who couldn't tell the truth, to Bill Clinton, who couldn't tell the difference.
Jay Leno
#63. A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils
George Washington
#64. I have often expressed my sentiments, that every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience.
George Washington
#65. My manner of living is plain and I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready.
George Washington
#66. A bank in Washington was robbed by two men in George W. Bush masks. Luckily, right afterwards two guys in President Obama masks came and bailed the bank out, so everything is fine.
Conan O'Brien
#67. If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be
a Christian. Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist
George Washington
#68. Soap is another article in great demand
the Continental allowance is too small, and dear, as every necessary of life is now got, a soldier's pay will not enable him to purchase, by which means his consequent dirtiness adds not a little to the disease of the Army.
George Washington
#69. Karl stood up and pointed at the large portraits on the wall. He swept the room from George Washington to Ben Franklin to John Adams to Thomas Jefferson. "Soldier, Printer, Lawyer, Scholar. You become a politician because the people make you one, not because you desire to be one.
Jeff Ferry
#70. I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.
George W. Bush
#71. 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.
George Washington
#72. For example, a man who might not have enormous charisma, who could be president 40 years ago, and who was a deserving president, I don't know that George Washington would be a president today, I don't know that Abe Lincoln would, I don't know that Roosevelt would.
Sydney Pollack
#73. In Washington, when you're a leader, you have to put aside partisan politics to do what's right for the people.
George Pataki
#74. The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail.
George Washington
#75. If you have a plan, we want to hear it. Tell your community leaders, your local officials, your governor, and your team in Washington. Believe me, your ideas count. An individual can make a difference.
George H. W. Bush
#76. I go to the chair of government with feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.
George Washington
#77. Voiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear.
George Washington
#78. There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves.
George Washington
#80. Your late purchase of an estate in the colony of Cayenne, with a view to emancipating the slaves on it, is a generous and noble proof of your humanity. Would to God a like spirit would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country; but I despair of seeing it.
George Washington
#81. George Washington participated as a vestryman in his local congregation, but that didn't really imply any particular kind of religious belief. This was necessary in order to participate in the society.
Matthew Stewart
#82. To constitute a dispute there must be two parties. To understand it well, both parties and all the circumstances must be fully heard; and to accommodate the differences, temper and mutual forbearance are requisite.
George Washington
#83. Everyone who ever did anything revolutionary was just an eighteen-year-old kid once. George Washington, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela ... Social status is just a social construct, the primary function of which is to keep regular people oppressed and rebels in line.
Matthew Quick
#84. It was in the Theatre St. Philippe (they has laid a temporary floor over the parquette seats) in the city we now call New Orleans, in the month of September, and in the year 1803.
George Washington Cable
#85. No man has a more perfect reliance on the alwise and powerful dispensations
of the Supreme Being than I have, nor thinks His aid more necessary.
George Washington
#86. Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence ... the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.
George Washington
#87. There were people who said the Society of Cincinnati in the American revolution, of which George Washington was one of the shining lights, was a branch of the Illuminati.
Carroll Quigley
#88. George Washington became an official surveyor for Culpepper County at seventeen and a commissioned major in the militia at twenty;
Jennifer Senior
#89. 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.
George Washington
#90. Not only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly forsee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.
George Washington
#91. Experience has taught us, that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power.
George Washington
#93. Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.
George Washington
#94. The duty of holding a Neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of Peace and amity toward other Nations.
George Washington
#95. A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends.
George Washington
#96. I have often thought how much happier I should have been if, instead of accepting a command under such Circumstances, I should have taken my musket upon my Shoulder & entered the Ranks or ... had retir'd to the back country & lived in a Wig-wam. - GEORGE WASHINGTON
Joseph J. Ellis
#97. It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.
George Washington
#98. There is no restraining men's tongues or pens when charged with a little vanity.
George Washington
#99. It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.
George Washington
#100. When one side only of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly.
George Washington
