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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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George Mason
Age: 66 †
Born: 1725
Born: December 11
Died: 1792
Died: October 7
Lawyer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesman
Fairfax
Virginia
George Mason IV
Reach
Depends
Virtue
Wisdom
Attain
Within
Preserve
Happiness
Preserves
Upon
Depend
Must
Prosperity

More quotes by George Mason

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We owe to our Mother-Country the Duty of Subjects but will not pay her the Submission of Slaves.
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That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.
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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.
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The epithets of parent and child have been long applied to Great Britain and her colonies, [but] we rarely see anything from your side of the water except the authoritative style of a master to a school-boy.
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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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Considering the natural lust for power so inherent in man, I fear the thirst of power will prevail to oppress the people.
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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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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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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I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.
George Mason
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The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.
George Mason
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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.
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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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No point is of more importance than that the right of impeachment should be continued. Shall any man be above Justice?
George Mason
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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 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
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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All men are by nature born equally free and independent.
George Mason
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The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
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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