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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.

George Washington

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George Washington
Age: 67 †
Born: 1732
Born: February 22
Died: 1799
Died: December 14
1St U.S. President
Cartographer
Engineer
Farmer
Land Surveyor
Military Officer
Politician
Slaveholder
Statesperson
Westmoreland County
Virginia
Washington
President Washington
G. Washington
Father of the United States
The American Fabius
Back
Bought
Look
Useful
Looks
Errors
Lessons
Unless
Purpose
Profiting
Experience
Dearly
Past
Derive

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To place any dependence upon militia is assuredly resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life, unaccustomed to the din of arms, totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill ... makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows.
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Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government . . . can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.
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The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.
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Among many other weighty objections to the Measure, it has been suggested, that it has a tendency to introduce religious disputes into the Army, which above all things should be avoided, and in many instances would compel men to a mode of Worship which they do not profess.
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I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves.
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To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government for the whole is indispensable.
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A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.
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Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.
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The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes.
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[The adoption of the Constitution] will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it.
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I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.
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No distance can keep anxious lovers long asunder.
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The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principle of private morality.
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I rejoice that liberty . . . now finds an asylum in the bosom of a regularly organized government a government, which, being formed to secure happiness of the French people, corresponds with the ardent wishes of my heart, while it gratifies the pride of every citizen of the United States, by its resemblance to their own.
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The States separately have very inadequate ideas of the present danger. Party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day, whilst the concerns of the nation are secondary.
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It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
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My anxious recollections, my sympathetic feeling, and my best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.
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Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue?
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