Mount Vernon, Virginia…Bits of Wisdom from our first President George Washington for His Birthday. George Washington, February 22, 1732, – December 14, 1799

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

“It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”

“There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy”

“99% of failures come from people who make excuses.”

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

“When one side only of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly.”