“Lenity will operate with greater force, in some instances, than rigor. It is, therefore, my first wish, to have my whole conduct distinguished by it.”
Quote by George Washington
“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.”
Source: Basic Writings of George Washington
“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.”
“My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.”
Source: The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts; with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations
“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.”
Source: Declaration of Independence ... with the Names, Places of Residence, &c. of the Signers. Constitution of the United States ...: Also, Address of George Washington ... on Declining Being Considered a Candidate for Their Future Suffrages. September 17, 1796
“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.”
Source: The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources, 1745-1799
“I'm a Libertarian. I'm liberty, justice for all, liberty for all.”
“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.”
Source: The Writings of George Washington: pt. V. Speeches and messages to Congress, proclamations, and addresses
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.”
Source: The speeches, addresses and messages, of the several presidents of the United States, at the openings of Congress and at their respective inaugurations: Also, the Declaration of independence, the Constitution of the United States, and Washington's farewell address to his fellow-citizens
“Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one.”
Source: Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious
“There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”
Source: The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private