George Washington

Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive.

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.

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.

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

I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.

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.

Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to endulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to exception.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

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.

I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country.

War - An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

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