Quotes & Sayings About Virginians

The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I Am Not A Virginian, But An American! — Patrick Henry

The Virginians of the mountains, and of the broad valley of the Shenandoah River just beyond, were a different breed. — James L. Haley

By 1770, fewer than 10 percent of white Virginians laid claim to over half the land in the colony; a small upper echelon of large planters each owned slaves in the hundreds. More than half of white men owned no land at all, working as tenants or hired laborers, or contracted as servants. — Nancy Isenberg

I was a hard-times governor. I had to steer my state through the deepest recession since the 1930s. But hey, tough times don't last and tough people do. And can I tell you that Virginians are tough people? We are tough people. — Tim Kaine

We Virginians do not go to the storied shrines of the past to do worship but rather to gain inspiration. — Douglas Southall Freeman

Virginians want you to work across the aisle. — Tim Kaine

Virginians! With me! Who will come with me!? — Lewis Armistead

They are kind of queer about music and books and scenery. Mother says it's because their grandfather came from Virginia. She says Virginians set quite a store by such things. — Margaret Mitchell

General Lee, this is no place for you. These men behind you are Georgians and Virginians. They have never failed you and will not fail you here. Will you boys? — John Brown Gordon

So great was the quest for patronage that Lincoln came to hope that Southerners would never leave the Union and abandon the plum government jobs they might retain if they remained loyal. As he joked rather cynically to the Ohio editor and politician Donn Piatt over a chicken dinner at the Lincoln home: "Were it believed that vacant places could be had at the North Pole, the road there would be lined with dead Virginians. — Harold Holzer

Virginians were nice, they confided to each other, if caught singly. Two Virginians, of course, talked horses. — Isabel Scott Rorick

In three years of backbreaking studies that, according to Madison, "exacted perhaps the most severe of Jefferson's public labors," Jefferson had almost single-handedly provided "a mine of legislative wealth" that provided Virginians with a modern republic built on the foundations of Greece and Rome. It became a model for other states and the pattern after which the federal republic of the United States was modeled. Jefferson, in short, in his legal laboratory atop Monticello, invented the United States of America. — Willard Sterne Randall

I was the legal counsel in the effort to amend the Virginia Constitution to give Virginians the right to hunt and fish constitutionally, and we are one of the few states in the country to protect that right. — Tim Kaine

That there would be a political advantage in having the declaration written by a Virginian was clear, for the same reason there had been political advantage in having the Virginian Washington in command of the army. But be that as it may, Jefferson, with his "peculiar felicity of expression," as Adams said, was the best choice for the task, just as Washington had been the best choice to command the Continental Army, and again Adams had played a key part. Had his contributions as a member of Congress been only that of casting the two Virginians in their respective, fateful roles, his service to the American cause would have been very great. — David McCullough

Washington departed the planet as admirably as he had inhabited it. He had long hated slavery, even though he had profited from it. Now, in his will, he stipulated that his slaves should be emancipated after Martha's death, and he set aside funds for slaves who would be either too young or too old to care for themselves. Of the nine American presidents who owned slaves - a list that includes his fellow Virginians Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe - only Washington set free all of his slaves. Washington — Ron Chernow

Virginians were no more angels or philanthropists than people to the north or to the south of them. They were moved by their affections, their interest, and their resentments, just as humanity is moved today. — John Sergeant Wise

There was a burst of applause when George Washington entered and walked to the dais. More applause followed on the appearance of Thomas Jefferson, who had been inaugurated Vice President upstairs in the Senate earlier that morning, and "like marks of approbation" greeted John Adams, who on his entrance in the wake of the two tall Virginians seemed shorter and more bulky even than usual. — David McCullough

If you think looking at three hundred boiling-mad, half-cocked Virginians holding every kind of breechloader under God's sun staring back at you with murder in their eyes is a ticket to redemption, you is on the dot. — James McBride

I can see it now: Osama bin Laden goes up to the pearly gates where George Washington comes out, starts beating him and is then joined by 70 other members of the Continental Congress. Osama will say, Hey, wait! Where are my 71 virgins? And George will reply It's 71 Virginians, you asshole! — Robin Williams

I love Virginians because Virginians are all snobs and I like snobs. A snob has to spend so much time being a snob that he has little time left to meddle with you. — William Faulkner

I am very proud of the critical role West Virginians play in providing energy to our nation. — Joe Manchin

Washington, like most scholarly Virginians of his time, was a Deist... Contemporary evidence shows that in mature life Washington was a Deist, and did not commune, which is quite consistent with his being a vestryman. In England, where vestries have secular functions, it is not unusual for Unitarians to vestrymen, there being no doctrinal subscription required for that office. Washington's letters during the Revolution occasionally indicate his recognition of the hand of Providence in notable public events, but in the thousands of his letters I have never been able to find the name of Christ or any reference to him.

{Conway was employed to edit Washington's letters} — Moncure D. Conway

The thing that influenced me most in relation to 'Nanny McPhee' were the Westerns I watched with my father. All the Spaghetti Westerns; all the Virginians; all the High Chaparrals. Because if you think about the form, it's a stranger from out of town. — Emma Thompson

Cotton says, "If God be the gardener, who shall pluck up what he sets down?" Hear that, Indians? No weeding of the white people allowed. Unless they're Catholic. Or one of those Satan-worshipping Virginians. — Sarah Vowell

I am not a Virginian, I am an American. — Patrick Henry

Why, I've seen Kentuckians who hated whiskey, Virginians who weren't descended from Pocahontas, Indianians who hadn't written a novel, Mexicans who didn't wear velvet trousers with silver dollars sewed along the seams, funny Englishmen, spendthrift Yankees, cold-blooded Southerners, narrow- minded Westerners, and New Yorkers who were too busy to stop for an hour on the street to watch a one-armed grocer's clerk do up cranberries in paper bags. Let a man be a man and don't handicap him with the label of any section. — O. Henry

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn't get there. — Abraham Lincoln