I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.

More from George Washington

• Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
• It is not in the power of any man to command success; but you have done more — you have deserved it.
• My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty . . . it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.
• Prosperity destroys fools and endangers the wise.
• Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
• Reason, too late perhaps, may convince you of the folly in misspending time.