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“The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.”
― Jay Leno

“When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice... I know that Gouverneur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did.

{The Anas, February 1, 1800, written shortly after the death of first US president George Washington}”
― Thomas Jefferson, The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson

“Tom Paine has almost no influence on present-day thinking in the United States because he is unknown to the average citizen. Perhaps I might say right here that this is a national loss and a deplorable lack of understanding concerning the man who first proposed and first wrote those impressive words, 'the United States of America.'

But it is hardly strange.

Paine's teachings have been debarred from schools everywhere and his views of life misrepresented until his memory is hidden in shadows, or he is looked upon as of unsound mind.

We never had a sounder intelligence in this Republic. He was the equal of Washington in making American liberty possible. Where Washington performed Paine devised and wrote. The deeds of one in the Weld were matched by the deeds of the other with his pen.

Washington himself appreciated Paine at his true worth. Franklin knew him for a great patriot and clear thinker. He was a friend and confidant of Jefferson, and the two must often have debated the academic and practical phases of liberty.

I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. Although the present generation knows little of Paine's writings, and although he has almost no influence upon contemporary thought, Americans of the future will justly appraise his work. I am certain of it.

Truth is governed by natural laws and cannot be denied. Paine spoke truth with a peculiarly clear and forceful ring. Therefore time must balance the scales. The Declaration and the Constitution expressed in form Paine's theory of political rights. He worked in Philadelphia at the time that the first document was written, and occupied a position of intimate contact with the nation's leaders when they framed the Constitution.

Certainly we may believe that Washington had a considerable voice in the Constitution. We know that Jefferson had much to do with the document. Franklin also had a hand and probably was responsible in even larger measure for the Declaration. But all of these men had communed with Paine. Their views were intimately understood and closely correlated. There is no doubt whatever that the two great documents of American liberty reflect the philosophy of Paine.

...Then Paine wrote 'Common Sense,' an anonymous tract which immediately stirred the fires of liberty. It flashed from hand to hand throughout the Colonies. One copy reached the New York Assembly, in session at Albany, and a night meeting was voted to answer this unknown writer with his clarion call to liberty. The Assembly met, but could find no suitable answer. Tom Paine had inscribed a document which never has been answered adversely, and never can be, so long as man esteems his priceless possession.

In 'Common Sense' Paine flared forth with a document so powerful that the Revolution became inevitable. Washington recognized the difference, and in his calm way said that matters never could be the same again. It must be remembered that 'Common Sense' preceded the declaration and affirmed the very principles that went into the national doctrine of liberty. But that affirmation was made with more vigor, more of the fire of the patriot and was exactly suited to the hour... Certainly [the Revolution] could not be forestalled, once he had spoken.

{The Philosophy of Paine, June 7, 1925}”
― Thomas Edison, Diary and Sundry Observations of Thomas Alva Edison

“Suppose that a man leaps out of a burning building—as my dear friend and colleague Jeff Goldberg sat and said to my face over a table at La Tomate in Washington not two years ago—and lands on a bystander in the street below. Now, make the burning building be Europe, and the luckless man underneath be the Palestinian Arabs. Is this a historical injustice? Has the man below been made a victim, with infinite cause of complaint and indefinite justification for violent retaliation? My own reply would be a provisional 'no,' but only on these conditions. The man leaping from the burning building must still make such restitution as he can to the man who broke his fall, and must not pretend that he never even landed on him. And he must base his case on the singularity and uniqueness of the original leap. It can't, in other words, be 'leap, leap, leap' for four generations and more. The people underneath cannot be expected to tolerate leaping on this scale and of this duration, if you catch my drift. In Palestine, tread softly, for you tread on their dreams. And do not tell the Palestinians that they were never fallen upon and bruised in the first place. Do not shame yourself with the cheap lie that they were told by their leaders to run away. Also, stop saying that nobody knew how to cultivate oranges in Jaffa until the Jews showed them how. 'Making the desert bloom'—one of Yvonne's stock phrases—makes desert dwellers out of people who were the agricultural superiors of the Crusaders.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the welder, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Washington once advised his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.”
― Ron Chernow

“E Pluribus Unum
The United States of America (USA)
Is a meeting place
For peoples of varied backgrounds.

And from the Great Plains of Nebraska and Wyoming
To Maryland's Eastern Shore.

From the Great Lakes adjacent Minnesota,
To the Everglades of Southern Florida.

We are one.

From the corals
Off of California's coasts.

To the mountains
Of the Shenandoah, in Virginia.

We are one.

From the steel and concrete towers
Of New York City
To Liberty Bell
In Pennsylvania.

We are One.

Out of many:
A
single,
We've become.

Out of many:
A
single;

We are one.

As the many stones that make the Obelisk In Washington,
Many individuals
Make the United States Of America.
And the best of all the world
Is here with us.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Poems Honoring Our American Values

“It is worthy to note, that the early popularity of Washington was not the result of brilliant achievement nor signal success; on the contrary, it rose among trials and reverses, and may almost be said to have been the fruit of defeat.”
― Washington Irving, Life of George Washington, Vols 1-5

“British diplomats and Anglo-American types in Washington have a near-superstitious prohibition on uttering the words 'Special Relationship' to describe relations between Britain and America, lest the specialness itself vanish like a phantom at cock-crow.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“In Paris and London he had seen nothing to make a return to life worth while; in Washington he saw plenty of reasons for staying dead.”
― Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams

“I know I got to eat. But I got to live too.”
― August Wilson, Fences - Screenplay

“*Poem: Washington D.C. (The District)*

I love it
In this square
of columns and obelisks�
and monuments designed
to align
with constellations:
To symbolize our protection.
Serius. Virgo. Sun.

Washington,
Here where Virginia and Maryland meet, and greet.

Streets and corner-stones laid
In the glorious shapes
of Pentagrams and Christian crosses
And cubes and pyramids,
And the Blazing Star set on a ley line,
And the temple in the eye.

Homes, made
of red-brick, and granite
Stones.

Laus Deo!

Answers
May be somewhere
Off the shores
Of the Potomac;
Where my father
Once baptized me,

And the waters
Of the district
Touched my skin.

And the consciousness of America
Was rebirthed in me.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr., The Pursuit of Happiness: A Book of Poems Honoring Our American Values

“But mostly, finally, ultimately, I'm here for the weather.

As a result of the weather, ours is a landscape in a minor key, a sketchy panorama where objects, both organic and inorganic, lack well-defined edges and tent to melt together, creating a perpetual blurred effect, as if God, after creating Northwestern Washington, had second thoughts and tried unsuccessfully to erase it. Living here is not unlike living inside a classical Chinese painting before the intense wisps of mineral pigment had dried upon the silk - although, depending on the bite in the wind, they're times when it's more akin to being trapped in a bad Chinese restaurant; a dubious joint where gruff waiters slam chopsticks against the horizon, where service is haphazard, noodles soggy, wallpaper a tad too green, and considerable amounts of tea are spilt; but in each and every fortune cookie there's a line of poetry you can never forget. Invariably, the poems comment on the weather.

In the deepest, darkest heart of winter, when the sky resembles bad banana baby food for months on end, and the witch measles that meteorologists call "drizzle" are a chronic gray rash on the skin of the land, folks all around me sink into a dismal funk. Many are depressed, a few actually suicidal. But I, I grow happier with each fresh storm, each thickening of the crinkly stratocumulus. "What's so hot about the sun?" I ask. Sunbeams are a lot like tourists: intruding where they don't belong, promoting noise and forced activity, faking a shallow cheerfulness, dumb little cameras slung around their necks. Raindrops, on the other hand, introverted, feral, buddhistically cool, behave as if they were locals. Which, of course, they are.”
― Tom Robbins, Wild Ducks Flying Backward

“And shall we at last become the victims of our own abominable lust of gain? Forbid it, Heaven." Washington himself could be a hard driving businessman, yet he found the rapacity of many vendors unconscionable. As he told George Mason, he thought it the intent of the speculators, various tribes of money makers and stock jobbers of all denominations, to continue the war for their own private emolument, without considering that their avarice and thirst for gain must plunge everything in one common ruin.”
― Ron Chernow

“Con tal disposición y determinación, ¡qué país es éste para el viajero, donde la más mísera posada está tan llena de aventuras como un castillo encantado y cada comida es en sí un logro! ¡Que se quejen otros de la falta de buenos caminos y hoteles suntuosos y de todas las complicadas comodidades de un país culto y civilizado en la mansedumbre y el lugar común, pero a mí que me den el trepar por las ásperas montañas, el andar por ahí errante y las costumbres medio salvajes, pero francas y hospitalarias, que le dan un sabor tan exquisito a la querida, vieja y romántica España!”
― Washington Irving, Cuentos de la Alhambra (Narrativa)

“Barack was now surrounded by people whose job was to treat him like a precious gem. It sometimes felt like a throwback to some lost era...”
― Michelle Obama, Michelle Obama - Quotes to Live By

“Kramer's sits on Connecticut Avenue just north of Dupont Circle and is a Washington institution of sorts, functioning as a bookstore, restaurant, and bar all in one. The front always swarms with people perusing the book displays, which overflow with stacks of paperbacks and hardbacks, everything from political memoirs to the juiciest works of fiction.”
― Dana Bate, The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs

“...there I was, trying to hold up my end in a city where you can't even buy a decent bagel. I don't mean to make it sound as if it's all about being Jewish, but that's another thing about Washington. It makes you feel really Jewish if that's what you are. It's not just that there are so many Gentiles there; it's that the Gentiles are so Gentile. Listen, even the Jews there are sort of Gentile.”
― Nora Ephron, Heartburn

“Later, some of his supporters decide that Antifa orchestrated
the whole thing. It’s as if Antifa, probably taking advantage of a
group-discount rate at the MAGA store, suddenly show up decked out
in all this crap, I mean, merchandise, and duped the poor, pathetic
Make America Great Again crowd. Sometimes reality is an orphan in the valley of the true believers.”
― Gary J. Floyd, Barbarians in the Halls of Power

“Hello Seattle, hello COVID-19.”
― Steven Magee

“Falling in love with Washington is like celebrating Valentine's Day every day.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“The virus of independence-seeking is also spreading in Africa. The Cold War is raging in full force and both power blocs are trying to increase their influence by harnessing the black intelligentsia in the colonies to their respective chariots. Through foreign embassies, the most able students are tracked down and ideologically groomed to play a political role. The colonies must become independent in favour of the neo-colonial policies of Washington and Moscow!”
― André-Bernard Ergo, Congo belge: La colonie assassinée

“Joshua Freed is the CEO of Equity Capital Inc. He and his wife have five children and are dedicated to serving their local church and community. Mr. Freed previously lived in Bothell, Washington and is now a resident of Florida. He has sat on a number of boards, including Protect a Child Today and Vital Solutions. He has been a real estate developer for 16 years and runs his business on foundational principles of serving others and producing high-quality homes.”
― Joshua Freed

“Things grow heartily in our state of Washington: emerald moss, honey crisp apples, sweet cherries, big dreams, caffeine addiction, and acute passive aggression.”
― Kira Jane Buxton, Hollow Kingdom

“Brenton Struck is a talented Network Administrator with over 5 years of experience managing complex networks for large organizations. He grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and earned his Bachelor's degree in Information Technology from the University of Washington Tacoma. Brenton's expertise includes managing firewalls, routers, switches, and other network devices, as well as monitoring network performance and security. He is proficient in using network software, including Cisco IOS, Juniper, Palo Alto, and Fortinet. Brenton has also worked for Microsoft in Seattle, where he gained valuable industry experience and honed his skills in network administration.”
― Brenton Struck

“Gambia Airport fees are an integral part of the air travel ecosystem, playing a vital role in sustaining the operations and growth of the airport while facilitating safe and enjoyable journeys for travelers.”
― Gambia Airport Fees

“About all I can say about the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.”
― Will Rogers

“Things could be worse now. Agnew could be the Vice-President.”
― Elizabeth Drew, Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall

“You listen here, I'll either find my boy with God, or without God. It makes no difference to me. But let me tell you one thing - I will find my boy...and alive! - Annie (Momma) Hodges”
― Steve Patton, A Band of Dogs: Foundations