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George Washington

statue by Jean-Antoine Houdon

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Notable quotes

“Nothing is a greater stranger to my breast, or a sin that my soul more abhors, than that black and detestable one, ingratitude.”
— Letter to Governor Dinwiddie (29 May 1754)
“In the last place, though first in importance I shall ask—is there any thing doing, or that can be done to restore the credit of our currency? The depreciation of it is got to so alarming a point—that a waggon load of money will scarcely purchase a waggon load of provision.”
— Letter to John Jay, 23 April 1779, Founders Online, National Archives. Source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 20, 8 April–31 May 1779, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, p. 177. Also found in The Life John Jay With Selections from His Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers. by His Son, William Jay in Two Volumes, Vol. II., 1833
“Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow, but the people will be right at last.”
— Letter to the Marquis de Lafayette (25 July 1785)
“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.”
— Letter to Sir Edward Newenham (22 June 1792) as published in The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources (1939) as edited by John Clement Fitzpatrick
“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.”
— 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
“America has furnished to the world the character of Washington! And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.”
— Daniel Webster, Completion of Bunker Hill Monument (17 June 1843), Volume I, p. 105

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

Country: United States
Inception: 1785, 1932

Overview

George Washington is a statue by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon from the late 18th century. Based on a life mask and other measurements of George Washington taken by Houdon, it is considered one of the most accurate depictions of the subject. The original sculpture is located in the rotunda of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia, and it has been copied extensively, with one copy standing in the United States Capitol Rotunda. The date given for the sculpture varies. It was commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly in 1784, begun in 1785, signed "1788", completed in 1791 or 1792, and delivered in 1796. Description The original statue is carved from Carrara marble, weighing 18 tons. It depicts a standing life-sized Washington. In his right hand is a cane, his left arm rests on a fasces on which is slung his cape and sword, and at the back is a plow. He is shown wearing his military uniform, as Washington wished to be depicted in contemporary attire, rather than that of antiquity popular in Neo-classical sculpture. With its selection of objects both civilian (the plow and cane) and military (the fasces, sword, and uniform), the statue has been interpreted as invoking the imagery and ideal of an Ancient Roman dictator, Cincinnatus, with whom Washington has been compared in his decision to retire from public life following the Revolutionary War. Washington was elected president of The Society of the Cincinnati in 1783. At the time of the statue's commission, Washington had not yet served in the Constitutional Convention and would not become President of the United States until 1789.

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

George Washington

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George Washington

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