I.B. George Quotes

We can't control forces of nature. But we can control what comes afterward. We have a chance to start fresh.

Reform is like morning glories; they look great early in the day and then they disappear.

Extremism in defense of liberty is not a vice, but I denounce political extremism, of the left or the right, based on duplicity, falsehood, fear, violence and threats when they endanger liberty.

I'm concerned about truth and credibility in government.

Every creature alive on the earth today represents an unbroken line of life that stretches back to the first primitive organism to appear on this planet; and that is about three billion years.

The great questions are those an intelligent child asks and, getting no answers, stops asking.

Death seems to have been a rather late invention in evolution. One can go a long way in evolution before encountering an authentic corpse.

We are living in a world in which all wars are wars of defense.

As you lecture, you keep watching the faces, and information keeps coming back to you all the time.

A lecture is much more of a dialogue than many of you probably realize.

So-called defense now absorbs sixty per cent of the national budget, and about twelve per cent of the Gross National Product.

The best and only safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice.

The most enviable praise of all is just to be called an honest man.

It is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.

Paper money will invariably operate in the body of politics as spirit liquors on the human body. They prey on the vitals and ultimately destroy them

What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal and fallacious.

Laws or ordinances unobserved, or partially attended to, had better never have been made.

99% percent of failures are the ones who make excuses.

A natural parent has only two things principally to consider, the improvement of his son, and the finances to do it with.

No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.

I shall make it the most agreeable part of my duty to study merit, and reward the brave and deserving.

Indians and wolves are both beasts of prey, tho' they differ in shape.

The Arts and Sciences, essential to the prosperity of the State and to the ornament of human life, have a primary claim to the encouragement of every lover of his country and mankind.

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.

We had quitters during the Revolution too...we called them 'Kentuckians.'

'Tis 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.

Let thy carriage be such as becomes a man grave settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not, at every turn, what others say.

There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves.

I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn into precedent.

I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country.

The liberty enjoyed by the people of these states of worshiping Almighty God agreebly to their conscience, is not only among the choicest of their blessings, but also of their rights.

I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one's life, the foundation of happiness or misery.

The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.

..the establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive that induced me to the field of battle.

It is on great occasions only, and after time has been given for cool and deliberate reflection, that the real voice of the people can be known.

Real men despise battle, but will never run from it.

Life is always uncertain, and common prudence dictates to every man the necessity of settling his temporal concerns, while it is in his power, and while the mind is calm and undisturbed.

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country. - March 15, 1783

I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination.

We must take human nature as we find it, perfection falls not to the share of mortals.

[It] is the juvenal period of life when friendships are formed, and habits established, that will stick by one.

There was not a member of the Constitutional Convention who had the least objection to what is contended for by the advocates for a Bill of Rights and trial by jury.

[V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

I never have to grope for methods. The method is revealed at the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless.

No man has a more perfect reliance on the alwise and powerful dispensations of the Supreme Being than I have, nor thinks His aid more necessary.

It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity, and the father of mischief.

The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

Interwoven is the love of liberty with every ligament of the heart.

The pure and benign light of revelation has had a meliorating influence on mankind.