His anger was strong when it was excited, but his ordinary disposition was one of massive equanimity.
He was not imaginative, but he took things as they came, and did what the occasion demanded.

In crises that did not admit of deliberation, his instinctive courage guided his behavior, but such crises belong to military experience, and in civil life careful deliberation was his rule.
It was his practice to read important documents pen in hand to note the points.

From one of his familiar letters to General Knox we learn that on rising in the morning he would turn over in his mind the day's work and would consider how to deal with it.

His new circumstances soon apprised him that the first thing to be settled was his deportment as President.
Under any form of government the man who is head of the state is forced, as part of his public service, to submit to public exhibition and to be exact in social observance; but, unless precautions are taken, engagements will consume his time and strength.

Writing to a friend about the situation in which he found himself, Washington declared: "By the time I had done breakfast, and thence till dinner, and afterwards till bed-time, I could not get relieved from the ceremony of one visit, before I had to attend to another.