George Washington

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves.

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.

The Nation which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.

Promote then, as the object of your universal policy, the interest and happiness of your country.

Unity is the child of order, and order presupposes authority.

Every day is a new beginning. Take a deep breath and start again.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.

The greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty.

The spirit of party... agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms.

Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing.

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.

Nothing can illustrate these observations more forcibly than a comparison between the conduct of the disciples of Alexander, and the students of any Tyro or Sycophant.

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land—whose Providential Agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent Nation—still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven.

A primary object... should be the education of our youth in the science of government.