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Attend with Diligence and strict Integrity to the Interest of your Correspondents and enter into no Engagements which you have not the almost certain Means of performing.

George Mason

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George Mason
Age: 66 †
Born: 1725
Born: December 11
Died: 1792
Died: October 7
Lawyer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesman
Fairfax
Virginia
George Mason IV
Mean
Strict
Enter
Performing
Integrity
Correspondents
Almost
Engagements
Interest
Diligence
Means
Attend
Certain
Engagement

More quotes by George Mason

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I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.
George Mason
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The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
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The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.
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Whatever power may be necessary for the National Government a certain portion must necessarily be left in the States. It is impossible for one power to pervade the extreme parts of the U.S. so as to carry equal justice to them.
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All men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing the obtaining of happiness and safety.
George Mason
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I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.
George Mason
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A few years' experience will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings.
George Mason
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Slavery discourages arts and manufacturing ...[and] every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant.
George Mason
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That slow poison [slavery] is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty.
George Mason
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I thank God, I have been able, by adopting Principles of strict Economy and Frugality, to keep my principal, I mean my Country-Estate, unimpaired.
George Mason
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I charge [my sons] never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to influence them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death deter them from asserting the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born
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A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
George Mason
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If I can only live to see the American union firmly fixed, and free governments well established in our western world, and can leave to my children but a crust of bread and liberty, I shall die satisfied.
George Mason
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Happiness and Prosperity are now within our Reach but to attain and preserve them must depend upon our own Wisdom and Virtue.
George Mason
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All power is lodged in, and consequently derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate, and buckle it on as our armour.
George Mason
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I determined to spend the Remainder of my Days in privacy and Retirement with my Children, from whose Society alone I cou'd expect Comfort.
George Mason
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Every selfish motive therefore, every family attachment, ought to recommend such a system of policy as would provide no less carefully for the rights and happiness of the lowest than of the highest orders of Citizens.
George Mason
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To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
George Mason
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I retired from public Business from a thorough Conviction that it was not in my Power to do any Good, and very much disgusted with Measures, which appeared to me inconsistent with common Policy and Justice.
George Mason
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Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table [the Constitution] gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor.
George Mason