"It is on great occasions only, and after time has been given for cool and deliberate reflection, that the real voice of the people can be known."
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George Washington quotes (page 21 of 34)
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"The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world."
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"Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will-or-what may be the issue of the contest. Speculation-peculation-engrossing-forestalling-with all their concomitants, afford too many melancholy proofs of the decay of public virtue; and too glaring instances of its being the interest and desire of too many, who would wish to be thought friends, to continue the war."
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"We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals."
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"I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination."
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"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass."
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"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country. - March 15, 1783"
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"It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief."
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"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."
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"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."
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"Being a politician makes your hair turn white."
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"Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions."
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"[V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."
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"[It] is the juvenal period of life when friendships are formed, and habits established, that will stick by one."
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"While all men within our territories are protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of their consciences; it is rationally to be expected from them in return, that they will [demonstrate] the innocence of their lives and the beneficence of their actions; for no man, who is profligate in his morals, or a bad member of the civil community, can possibly be a true Christian, or a credit to his own religious society."
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"Interwoven is the love of liberty with every ligament of the heart."
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"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."
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"The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded."
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"No compact among men... can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."
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"The pure and benign light of revelation has had a meliorating influence on mankind."
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