Travels with George Quotes

“Despite all her misgivings and regrets, she was “determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have . . . learnt from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances; we carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us, in our minds, wherever we go.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“have nothing but sympathy for John Adams. I, for one, can’t stand sitting on a beach—an activity (if you can call it that) to which many people devote their entire vacations.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“When Washington became president of the United States, he was still wrestling with the meaning of the American Revolution. He'd entered the conflict an unrepentant Virginia slaveholder. By the end of the war, he'd learned that his African-American soldiers were as competent and brave as anyone else in his army. He'd also befriended the idealistic French nobleman Lafayette, who later claimed, "I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery." Gradually, ever so gradually, a new Washington was emerging, one who realized that "nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating bond of principle." But even if he had come to recognize the direction the country must take in the future, he remained a slaveholder himself for the rest of his life. A struggle was being waged inside Washington between his ideological aspirations and his financial and familial commitment to slavery at Mount Vernon. Yes, Washington freed his enslaved workers upon his death, but it had been a very long time in coming. And yet, given where Washington had begun in life--as a slaveholder through inheritance at the age of eleven, when his father died--his eventual decision to free his slaves was no empty gesture.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“there is no earthly loneliness like that created by man’s abandonment of what he once . . . considered secure and permanent.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. As”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Melissa laughed and said that our dog was homeschooled”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Her name was Annie, and she, too, owned a dog. She said that Alexandria was “the most dog-friendly city in America.” There were so many dog day-care centers in town that people asked each other, “So where does your dog go to school?”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“I’ve long since learned to be wary of Melissa’s sighs. Whenever I finish the draft of a chapter, I read it to her out loud—usually while she’s washing the dishes after dinner. Not only does this get me out of doing the dishes, but it provides some extremely helpful, if on occasion devastating, feedback.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Three Village Historical Society”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Newburyport Public Library. In 1789, the president lodged in a big brick building that in 1865 was turned into the town’s library.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Like it or not, the factories of New Haven, Hartford, Boston, Beverly, and Haverhill were the country’s future, and Washington was all for it. —”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Old Sturbridge Village, a living museum that re-creates life in New England through the 1830s”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Fairfield Museum and History Center,”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Fairfield’s Sun Tavern”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Lafayette, who later claimed, “I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“Men’s minds are as variant as their faces,” he wrote. “Liberality and charity . . . ought to govern in all disputes about matters of importance.” On the other hand, “clamor and misrepresentation . . . only serve to foment the passions, without enlightening the understanding.”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“I have . . . learnt from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances; we carry the seeds of the one or the other”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy

“then it was on to Boston and a big parade. “Finding this ceremony was not to be avoided though I had made every effort to do it,” Washington recorded in his diary,”
― Nathaniel Philbrick, Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy