Quotes from George Washington

I never have to grope for methods. The method is revealed at the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless.

A good moral character is the first essential. It is highly important not only to be learned but to be virtuous.

To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.

Good company will always be found much less expensive than bad.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.

The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity.

The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.

[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.

... happily the Government of the United States... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.

In a free and republican government, you cannot restrain the voice of the multitude.

Peace with all the world is my sincere wish. I am sure it is our true policy, and am persuaded it is the ardent desire of the government.

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

While just government protects all in their religious rites, true religion affords government its surest support.

Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand.

In the appointments to the great offices of the government, my aim has been to combine geographical situation, and sometimes other considerations, with abilities and fitness of known characters.

The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

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.

[V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

It is one of the evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled, must often feel before they can act.

Influence is not government.

The situation of the general government, if it can be called a government, is shaken to its foundation, and liable to be overturned by every blast.

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

Government is not reason it is not eloquence - it is force.

Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a person's own mind, than on the externals in the world.