Alexander Hamilton Quotes
20 quotes from Alexander Hamilton — Founding Father, first US Secretary of the Treasury, and architect of the American financial system..
“I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. The result of the deliberations of all collective bodies must necessarily be a compound, as well of the errors and prejudices, as of the good sense and wisdom, of the individuals of whom they are composed.”
“Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”
“Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.”
“Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.”
“I am not a great believer in the idea that the people are always right.”
“I have a strong opinion that the best way to predict the future is to create it.”
“The first duty of society is justice.”
“A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”
“Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.”
“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
“The law is the public conscience.”
“In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”
“My ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.”
“Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world!”
“The debt of the United States... was the price of liberty. The faith of America has been repeatedly pledged for it, and with solemnities that give peculiar force to the obligation.”
“I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station... I wish there was a war.”
“States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those, who pursue an opposite conduct.”
“The idea of a smiling infant in my Betseys arms calls up all the father in it. In imagination I embrace the mother and embrace the child a thousand times. I can scarce refrain from shedding tears of joy. But I must not indulge these sensations; they are unfit for the boisterous scenes of war.”
“If the Party Shall by supporting Mr Burr as President adopt him for their official Chief—I shall be obliged to consider myself as an isolated man.”
“Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence.”
