Explore Quotes by George Mason

Your dear baby has died innocent and blameless, and has been called away by an all wise and merciful Creator, most probably from a life to misery and misfortune, and most certainly to one of happiness and bliss.

Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes.

As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this.

The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

All men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing the obtaining of happiness and safety.

Successfully reframing the climate debate in the United States from one based on environmental values to one based on health values...holds great promise to help American society better understand and appreciate the risks of climate change.

I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city.

That slow poison [slavery] is daily contaminating the minds and morals of our people. Every gentlemen here is born a petty tyrant, practiced in acts of despotism and cruelty.

All power is lodged in, and consequently derived from, the people. We should wear it as a breastplate, and buckle it on as our armour.

The epithets of parent and child have been long applied to Great Britain and her colonies, [but] we rarely see anything from your side of the water except the authoritative style of a master to a school-boy.

Considering the natural lust for power so inherent in man, I fear the thirst of power will prevail to oppress the people.

Is it to be expected that the Southern States will deliver themselves bound hand and foot to the Eastern States? A few rich merchants in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York could thereby monopolise the staples of the Southern States and reduce their value.

Slavery discourages arts and manufactures.

Who are the militia, if they be not the people, of this country...? I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.

It is contrary to the principles of reason and justice that any should be compelled to contribute to the maintenance of a church with which their consciences will not permit them to join, and from which they can derive no benefit; for remedy whereof, and that equal liberty as well religious as civil, may be universally extended to all the good people of this commonwealth.

Don't wait around for your life to happen to you. Find something that makes you happy, and do it. Because everything else is all just background noise.

Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state.

As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.

Slavery discourages arts and manufacturing ...[and] every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant.

I retired from public Business from a thorough Conviction that it was not in my Power to do any Good, and very much disgusted with Measures, which appeared to me inconsistent with common Policy and Justice.

Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens.