20 quotes
Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.
Farewell Address (1796)
Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.
Farewell Address (1796)
Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment.
Farewell Address (1796)
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.
Farewell Address (1796)
I have the consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it.
Farewell Address (1796)
Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.
Farewell Address (1796)
To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable.
Farewell Address (1796)
One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts.
Farewell Address (1796)
There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation.
Farewell Address (1796)
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.
Farewell Address (1796)
Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.
Farewell Address (1796)
Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
Farewell Address (1796)
It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.
Farewell Address (1796)
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.
Farewell Address (1796)
Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.
Farewell Address (1796)
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.
Farewell Address (1796)
If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
Farewell Address (1796)
The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.
Farewell Address (1796)
Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. (Note: spelling/capitalization likely original.).
Farewell Address (1796)
The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.
Farewell Address (1796)