Published by Gene Kirschbaum:
On 4 Feb 1789, Washington was unanimously elected by our Electoral College — an amazing feat that has never been repeated (except for his reelection in 1792).
He evidently enjoyed dogs — during the Revolutionary War, the pet terrier of a British General was found wandering the battlefield, so Washington ordered a cease fire. US troops waved a “truce flag” and the fighting ceased until the terrier was returned to the British.
Upon Washington’s death in 1799, Napoleon ordered 10 days of mourning in France, and Britain’s Royal Navy lowered flags to half-mast.
Accounts have it that when Leo Tolstoy (author of War and Peace) visited Siberia, he spoke to two guards who hadn’t heard much info about the world outside their guard post for a while. Of all the things they could have asked him about, they implored Tolstoy to explain a legend that they had heard about a man who was made a ruler, and then gave up that power — George Washington.
Here are a few quotes from our 1st president:
“Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”
“Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”
“There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.”
“Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.”
“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”
“Government is not reason and 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.”
“When government takes away citizens’ right to arms, it becomes citizens’ duty to take away government right to govern.”
“I wish from my soul that the legislature of this State could see the policy of a gradual Abolition of Slavery.”
“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.”
“I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman’s cares.”
“I hope, some day or another, we shall become a storehouse and granary for the world.”
“I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one’s life, the foundation of happiness or misery.”
Here are a few quotes about GW:
“I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.”
—Robert Frost
“George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.”
—Mark Twain
“His integrity was pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision.”
—Thomas Jefferson
“[Washington was] the greatest character of the age”
“They wanted me to be another Washington.”
—Napoleon, while imprisoned on the Isle of Elba
