Henry Cabot Lodge: “They are so complex, they are so often undefined, even in the mind of the man himself, that no one can pretend to make…”

It was a difficult thing for men who had been born colonists to rise to a sense of national opportunities, but Washington passed at a single step from being a Virginian to being an American, and in so doing he stood alone.

Clearness and precision of plan as to the central point, joined to a perfect readiness to change suddenly and strike hard and decisively in a totally different quarter, are sure marks of the great commander.

Fortitude in misfortune is more common than composure in the hour of victory.

He fought to free the colonies from England, and make them independent, not to play the part of a Cæsar or a Cromwell in the wreck and confusion of civil war.