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Persistently Carry out attacks on (usually on an enemy)
When the wife of the British ambassador later told him that his face showed pleasure at his forthcoming departure from the presidency, Washington grew indignant: “You are wrong. My countenance never yet betrayed my feelings!”2 He tried to govern his tongue as much as his face: “With me it has always been a maxim rather to let my designs appear from my works than by my expressions.”3
this man of deep feelings was sensitive to the delicate nuances of relationships and prone to tears as well as temper.
His unerring judgment, sterling character, rectitude, steadfast patriotism, unflagging sense of duty, and civic-mindedness—these exemplary virtues were achieved only by his ability to subdue the underlying volatility of his nature and direct his entire psychological makeup to the single-minded achievement of a noble cause.
bucolic
Throughout his life, he strenuously molded his personality to become a respectable member of society. As W. W. Abbot aptly expressed it, “More than most, Washington’s biography is the story of a man constructing himself.”17
“the intimate companion of my youth and the most affectionate friend of my ripened age,”
It was his outgoing and older half brother Lawrence, however, who fired his ambitions and steered him firmly in the direction of a military career.
“For the enlargement of George’s mind and the polishing of his manners, Lawrence was almost an ideal elder brother,”
“His features are regular and placid with all the muscles of his face under perfect control, though flexible and expressive of deep feeling when moved by emotions. In conversation, he looks you full in the face, is deliberate, deferential, and engaging. His demeanor at all times [is] composed and dignified. His movements and gestures are graceful, his walk majestic, and he is a splendid horseman.”
He was always tenacious and persevering and never settled for halfway measures.
“Errors once discovered are more than half amended,”
“Some men will gain as much experience in the course of three or four years as some will in ten or a dozen.”44 It was this process of subtle, silent, unrelenting self-criticism that enabled him to rise above his early defeats.
he worked assiduously at self-improvement,
