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“I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large; and, particularly, for their brethren who have served in the Geld; and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacifick temper of the mind, which were the characteristicks of the divine Author of our blessed religion; without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

George Washington

Circular Letter to the Governours of the several States (18 June 1783). Misreported as "I make it my constant prayer that God would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion; without a humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation", in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 315
1780s

“Unhappy it is though to reflect, that a Brother's Sword has been sheathed in a Brother's breast, and that, the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with Blood, or Inhabited by Slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?”

George Washington

Letter to Mr. George William Fairfax (31 May 1775) George Washington Papers http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw030206)) at the Library of Congress 1770s

“For myself the delay may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities and inclination which is necessary to manage the helm.”

George Washington

Comment to General Henry Knox on the delay in assuming office (March 1789)
1780s

“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s Liberty teeth and keystone under Independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizens’ firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this Land knows firearms and more than 99 99/100 per cent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference and they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good. When firearms go all goes, therefore we need them every hour.”

George Washington

This is the conclusion to an article entitled "Older Ideas of Firearms" by C. S. Wheatley; it was published in the September 1926 issue of Hunter, Trader, Trapper (vol. 53, no. 3), p. 34. Wheatley had referred to George Washington's address to the second session of the first Congress immediately before this passage, which may have given rise to the mistaken attribution. See this piece http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/26/firearm/ at Quote Investigator Misattributed

“So, there lies the brave de Kalb. The generous stranger, who came from a distant land to fight our battles and to water with his blood the tree of liberty. Would to God he had lived to share its fruits!”

George Washington

Upon visiting the grave of Johann de Kalb, some years after his death, as quoted in "Baron De Kalb" https://books.google.com/books?id=40wyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA96&dq=%22Would+to+God+he+had+lived+to+share+its+fruits%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2IoZVa3XLuyasQTXiIDoCg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Would%20to%20God%20he%20had%20lived%20to%20share%20its%20fruits%22&f=false (1827), by George R. Graham and Edgar Allan Poe, Graham's Illustrated Magazine of Literature, Romance, Art, and Fashion, Volume 2, Watson, p. 96. Posthumous attributions

“I am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St. foin seed, and that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills... Let the ground be well prepared, and the Seed (St. foin) be sown in April. The Hemp may be sown any where.”

George Washington

George Washington in a letter to William Pearce at Mount Vernon (Philadelphia 24th Feby 1794), The Writings of George Washington, Bicentennial Edition 1939, p.279 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=WIGyAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA279&dq=hemp, and founders.archives.gov https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-15-02-0210 This quote is often confused with Make the most of the Indian hemp seed, and sow it everywhere! George Washington Spurious Quotations http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digital-encyclopedia/article/spurious-quotations/ 1790s

“Men's minds are as variant as their faces, and, where the motives of their actions are pure, the operation of the former is no more to be imputed to them as a crime, than the appearance of the latter; for both, being the work of nature, are alike unavoidable.”

George Washington

Letter to Benjamin Harrison V (9 March 1789), published in Washington's Writings: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=DTlEAQAAMAAJ&rdid=book-DTlEAQAAMAAJ&rdot=1, Volume IX, p. 475. 1780s

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”

George Washington

First Annual Address, to both Houses of Congress (8 January 1790).
Compare: "Qui desiderat pacem præparet bellum" (translated: "Who would desire peace should be prepared for war"), Vegetius, Rei Militari 3, Prolog.; "In pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello" (translated: "In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war"), Horace, Book ii. satire ii.
1790s

“Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.”

George Washington

General Orders (18 April 1783)
1780s

“Nothing is a greater stranger to my breast, or a sin that my soul more abhors, than that black and detestable one, ingratitude.”

George Washington

Letter to Governor Dinwiddie (29 May 1754)
1750s

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

George Washington

Attributed to "The First President of the United States" in "Liberty and Government" by W. M., in The Christian Science Journal, Vol. XX, No. 8 (November 1902) edited by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 465; no earlier or original source for this statement is cited; later quoted in The Cry for Justice : An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest (1915) edited by Upton Sinclair, p. 305, from which it became far more widely quoted and in Frank J. Wilstach, A Dictionary of Similes, 2d ed., p. 526 (1924). In The Great Thoughts (1985), George Seldes says, p. 441, col. 2, footnote, this paragraph “although credited to the ‘Farewell’ [address] cannot be found in it. Lawson Hamblin, who owns a facsimile, and Horace Peck, America’s foremost authority on quotations, informed me this paragraph is apocryphal.” It is listed as spurious at the Mount Vernon website http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digital-encyclopedia/article/spurious-quotations/ Unsourced variant : Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. Misattributed, Spurious attributions Variant: Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

“If they have real grievances redress them, if possible; or acknowledge the justice of them, and your inability to do it at the moment. If they have not, employ the force of government against them at once.”

George Washington

Letter to Henry Lee (31 October 1786)
1780s

“While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian.”

George Washington

General Orders (2 May 1778); published in Writings of George Washington (1932), Vol.XI, pp. 342-343
1770s

“My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do, and more than can be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your houses and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably can never do under any other circumstances.”

George Washington

Encouraging his men to re-enlist in the army (31 December 1776)
1770s

“I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet.”

George Washington

The earliest source of this quote was a famous anecdote in The Life of George Washington, with Curious Anecdotes Laudable to Himself and Exemplary to his Countrymen (1806) by Parson Weems, which is not considered a credible source, and many incidents recounted in the work are now considered to have sprung entirely from Weems’ imagination. This derives from an anecdote of Washington, as a young boy, confessing to his father Augustine Washington that it was he who had cut a cherished cherry tree.
Variant:Father, I cannot tell a lie, I cut the tree.
Misattributed, Spurious attributions

“There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery.”

George Washington

Letter to Robert Morris https://web.archive.org/web/20060503040039/http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/project/volumes/confederation/essay4.html (12 April 1786) 1780s

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.”

George Washington

First Annual Address, to both House of Congress (8 January 1790)
1790s

“All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity.”

George Washington

Letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham (9 January 1790)
1790s

“I am a citizen of the greatest Republic of Mankind. I see the human race united like a huge family by brotherly ties. We have made a sowing of liberty which will, little by little, spring up across the whole world. One day, on the model of the United States of America, a United States of Europe will come into being. The United States will legislate for all its nationalities.”

George Washington

Attributed to Washington in "Farewell to the United States of Europe: long live the EU!" by André Fontaine at Open Democracy (29 November 2001) http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-europefuture/article_344.jsp. It appears to have originally circulated in French: :: Je suis citoyen de la Grande République de l'Humanité. Je vois le genre humain uni comme une grande famille par des liens fraternels. Nous avons jeté une semence de liberté et d'union qui germera peu à peu dans toute la Terre. Un jour, sur le modèle des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, se constitueront les États-Unis d'Europe. Les États-Unis seront le législateur de toutes les nationalités. : An anonymous blogger in "Did George Washington predict a "United States of Europe"? (30 January 2010) http://racehist.blogspot.com/2010/01/did-george-washington-predict-united.html showed that it derived from Gustave Rodrigues, Le peuple de l'action: essai sur l'idéalisme américain (A. Colin, 1917), p. 207: :: Washington écrivait à La Fayette qu'il se condérait comme « citoyen de la grande république de l'humanité » et ajoutait : « Je vois le genre humain uni comme une grande famille par des liens fraternels ». Ailleurs il écrivait, prophétiquement: « Nous avons jeté une semence de liberté et d'union qui germera peu à peu dans toute la terre. Un jour, sur le modèle des Etats-Unis d'Amérique, se constitueront les États-Unis d'Europe. » : A translation by Louise Seymour Houghton ( The People of Action: An Essay on American Idealism (1918) http://books.google.com/books?id=b8Y9AAAAYAAJ) reads: :: Washington wrote to Lafayette that he considered himself a "citizen of the great republic of humanity," adding: "I see the human race a great family, united by fraternal bonds." Elsewhere he wrote prophetically: "We have sown a seed of liberty and union that will gradually germinate throughout the earth. Some day, on the model of the United States of America, will be constituted the United States of Europe." [pp. 209-210] : The first two quotations come from a letter to the Marquis de Lafayette of 15 August 1786 (see above) as quoted in Joseph Fabre's Washington, libérateur de l'Amérique: suivi de Washington et la revolution Américaine (Ch. Delagrave, 1886), and the third is also found in that source where, although placed between quotation marks, it is clearly intended as the author's own comments on what "Washington and his friends" were saying to the world by establishing the American Constitution. Gustave Rodrigues mistakenly printed Fabre's words as Washington's alongside some actual observations of his from a letter to Lafayette, and so created the misquotation. Misattributed

“[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.”

George Washington

Letter to Steptoe Washington http://westillholdthesetruths.org/quotes/60/a-good-moral-character-is-the (5 December 1790) 1790s