Maxims of George Washington:

• It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
• The most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it.
• Good company will always be found less expensive than bad.
• By acting reciprocally, heroes have made poets and poets heroes.
• When there is no reason for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent.
• It is easy to make acquaintances but very difficult to shake them off.
• Too much zeal creates suspicion.
• Ridicule begets enmity not easy to be forgotten but easily avoided.
• Do not conceive that fine clothes make fine men any more than fine feathers make fine birds.
• Nothing is more useful for the formation of correct habits than the turning of our comments upon others, back upon ourselves.

“Wherever and whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.”