"But if we are to be told..." - Quote by George Washington
But if we are to be told by a foreign Power . . . what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.
More by George Washington
“I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.”
“I never did, nor do I believe I ever shall, give advice to a woman who is setting out on a matrimonial voyage; first, because I never could advise one to marry without her own consent; and, secondly, I know it is to no purpose to advise her to refrain when she has obtained it. A woman very rarely asks an opinion or requires advice on such an occasion, till her resolution is formed; and then it is with the hope and expectation of obtaining a sanction, not that she means to be governed by your disapprobation, that she applies.”
“Every post is honourable in which a man can serve his country.”
More on Independence
“If there is only one thing in my life that I am proud of, it's that I've never been a kept woman.”
“Don't live your life to please other people.”
“For, after all, the foundation of our whole nature, and, therefore, of our happiness, is our physique, and the most essential factor in happiness is health, and, next in importance after health, the ability to maintain ourselves in independence and freedom from care.”
More on Sovereignty
“We believe that big nations should not bully smaller nations, and that the sovereignty of nations must be respected. And we have long urged that disputes be resolved peacefully, including through mechanisms like international arbitration.”
“I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another; that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under themselves.”
“[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.”