Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Mason
Age: 66 †
Born: 1725
Born: December 11
Died: 1792
Died: October 7
Lawyer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesman
Fairfax
Virginia
George Mason IV
World
Dies
Fixed
American
Unions
Free
Bread
Government
Satisfied
Crust
Live
Western
Firmly
Wells
Leave
Established
Well
Liberty
Governments
Children
Shall
Union

More quotes by George Mason

Image
The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.
George Mason
Image
We are now to rank among the nations of the world but whether our Independence shall prove a blessing or a curse must depend upon our own wisdom or folly, virtue or wickedness.... Justice and virtue are the vital principles of republican government.
George Mason
Image
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
Image
Don't wait around for your life to happen to you. Find something that makes you happy, and do it. Because everything else is all just background noise.
George Mason
Image
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
Image
The Laws of Nature are the Laws of God, Whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey.
George Mason
Image
I give and bequeath my soul to Almighty God that gave it me, hoping that through the meritorious death and passion of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ to receive absolution and remission for all my sins.
George Mason
Image
Considering the natural lust for power so inherent in man, I fear the thirst of power will prevail to oppress the people.
George Mason
Image
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
Image
I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.
George Mason
Image
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.
George Mason
Image
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
Image
The question then will be, whether a consolidated government can preserve the freedom and secure the rights of the people.
George Mason
Image
The poor despise labor when performed by slaves.
George Mason
Image
We came equals into this world, and equals shall we go out of it.
George Mason
Image
The [President's] Nomination, of Course, brings the Subject fully under the Consideration of the Senate who have then a Right to decide upon its Propriety or Impropriety.
George Mason
Image
As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.
George Mason
Image
To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.
George Mason
Image
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
Image
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