Quote

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position.

George Washington

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Love
Form
Abuse
Despotism
Truth
Thus
Satisfy
Power
Position
Tyrants
Proneness
Government
Create
Tends
Predominates
Human
Politics
Department
Consolidate
Humans
Whatever
Tyranny
Encroachment
Real
Spirit
Sufficient
Departments
Heart
Political
Powers
Estimate

More quotes by George Washington

Image
Republicanism is not the phantom of a deluded imagination. On the contrary, laws, under no form of government, are better supported, liberty and property better secured, or happiness more effectually dispensed to mankind.
George Washington
Image
I anticipate with pleasing expectations that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws under a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors, and dangers.
George Washington
Image
Honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and only true policy let us then as a Nation be just.
George Washington
Image
It is to be lamented that great characters are seldom without a blot.
George Washington
Image
Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.
George Washington
Image
I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.
George Washington
Image
It is a maxim, founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.
George Washington
Image
The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
George Washington
Image
Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty.
George Washington
Image
In the composition of the human frame there is a good deal of inflammable matter, however dormant it may lie for a time.
George Washington
Image
The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.
George Washington
Image
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
Image
Paper money will invariably operate in the body of politics as spirit liquors on the human body. They prey on the vitals and ultimately destroy them
George Washington
Image
If you can't sent money, send tobacco.
George Washington
Image
It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy-this applies to public as well as private life-to States as well as individuals.
George Washington
Image
A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything.
George Washington
Image
Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good Government, I have considered the first arrangement of the Judicial department as essential to the happiness of our Country, and to the stability of its political system.
George Washington
Image
Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth.
George Washington
Image
Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause: And I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of ⟨the present⟩ age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this Kind.
George Washington
Image
We ought to deprecate the hazard attending ardent and susceptible minds, from being too strongly, and too early prepossessed in favor of other political systems, before they are capable of appreciating their own.
George Washington