100+ George Washington Quotes About Life That Will Inspire You to Live with Purpose

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

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

The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.

Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

Make sure you are doing what God wants you to do — then do it with all your strength.

A man ought not to value himself of his achievements or rare qualities of wit, much less of his riches, virtue or kindred.

Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

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

It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being.

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

I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world.

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.

Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.

Decision making, like coffee, needs a cooling process.

Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages.

The harder the conflict, the greater the triumph.

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

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.

We must consult our means rather than our wishes.

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

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 reflection upon my situation and that of this army produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in.

Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness.

99% of failures come from people who make excuses.

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.

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.

It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.

To persevere in one’s duty, and be silent is the best answer to calumny.

Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

Do not suffer your good nature to say yes when you ought to say no; remember that it is a public not a private cause that is to be injured or benefitted by your choice.

Those who have committed no faults want no pardon. We are only defending what we deem our indisputable rights.

The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it.

Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature; and in all cases of passion admit reason to govern.

No punishment, in my opinion, is too great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country’s ruin.

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.

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

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.

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

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

Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself, for example, is more prevalent than precepts.

Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty.

Be not glad at the misfortune of another, though he may be your enemy.

A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am, I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.

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

Nothing is a greater stranger to my breast, or a sin that my soul more abhors, than that black and detestable one, ingratitude.

A man’s intentions should be allowed in some respects to plead for his actions.

I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.

There is nothing which can better deserve our patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.

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

It is absolutely necessary for me to have persons that can think for me, as well as execute orders.

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.

I shall make it the most agreeable part of my duty to study merit, and reward the brave and deserving.

I shall not be deprived of a comfort in the worst event, if I retain a consciousness of having acted to the best of my judgment.

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.

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

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.

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my Commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.

Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.

For myself the delay may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.

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

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

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

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest.

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

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.

If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair. The rest is in the hands of God.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for War.

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

Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.

It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.

The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.

Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections.

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.

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.

Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.

No people can be bound to acknowledge the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States.

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions.

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

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

Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to indulge 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.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

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

The great mass of our Citizens require only to understand matters rightly, to form right decisions.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important?

Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge.

The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined than at any former period.