George Washington

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

89th: Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust.

Not only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly forsee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.

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

The hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are free men, fighting for the blessings of Liberty — that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.

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

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

Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply.

A special act of Congress enabled King to take his oath of office in Cuba — the only President or Vice President to be sworn in outside the United States — later in March. King returned home to Alabama in early April and died two days later, the only Vice President to never make it to the national capital during his term of office.

The General is sorry to be informed —, that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into a fashion; — he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by impiety and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.

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, on a thousand accounts; fewer still will believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if instead of accepting of a command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket upon my shoulders and entered the rank, or if I could have justified the measure of posterity, and my own conscience, had retired to the back country, and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these, and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it, to blind the eyes of our enemies; for surely if we get well through this month, it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages we labor under. Could I have foreseen the difficulties which have come upon us, could I have known that such a backwardness would have been discovered in the old soldiers to the service, all the generals upon earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston till this time.

Lay waste all the settlements around... that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed ... listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected.

Shrek is love, shrek is life

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

Is the consideration of a little dirty pelf, to individuals, to be placed in competition with the essential rights & liberties of the present generation, & of millions yet unborn? shall a few designing men for their own aggrandizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset the goodly fabric we have been rearing at the expence of so much time, blood, & treasure? and shall we at last become the victems of our own abominable lust of gain? Forbid it heaven! forbid it all, & every state in the union! by enacting & enforcing, efficatious laws for checking the growth of these monstrous evils, & restoring matters in some degree to the pristine state they were in at the commencement of the War. Our cause is noble. It is the cause of Mankind! and the danger to it springs from ourselves — Shall we slumber & sleep then while we should be punishing those miscreants who have brought these troubles upon us, & who are aiming to continue us in them? While we should be striving to fill our Battalions — and devising ways and means to appreciate the currency — On the credit of which every thing depends? I hope not — let vigorous measures be adopted — not to limit the price of articles — for this I conceive is inconsistent with the very nature of things, & impracticable in itself — but to punish speculators — forestallers — & extortioners — and above all — to sink the money by heavy Taxes — To promote public & private Œconomy — encourage Manufactures &ca — Measures of this sort gone heartily into by the several states will strike at once at the root of all our misfortunes, & give the coup-de-grace to British hope of subjugating this great Continent, either by their Arms or their Arts — The first as I have before observed they acknowledge is unequal to the task — the latter I am sure will be so if we are not lost to every thing that is good & virtuous.