Quotes from Ron Chernow

The decision was partly a question of style.

Ambition was reckless if inspired by purely selfish motives but laudable if guided by great principles

In Junior's opinion, his sisters were also disqualified because they did not handle their finances in the scrupulous manner demanded by father.

We know that Archbold had studied corruption at the master's feet, but Senior made no effort to disabuse his son.

He turned to Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, a bespectacled Republican with a grizzled beard, who was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and attended Harvard College and Law School. A former member of the Free-Soil Party, an upright gentleman of starchy integrity, he had served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court where he used sarcasm to savage lesser mortals. "When on the bench," wrote an observer, "he was said to be unhappy because he could not decide against both litigants.

These selfless warriors of the Revolution and sages of the Constitutional Convention had been forced to descend from their Olympian heights and adjust to a rougher world of everyday politics, where they cultivated their own interests and tried to capitalize on their former glory. In consequence, the founding fathers all appear to us in two guises: as both sublime and ordinary, selfless and selfish, heroic and humdrum

Rockefeller was fortunate to have applied his money at the precise moment that medical research matured as a discipline and offered unbounded opportunities.

Perhaps he did not think Junior could live with the moral ambiguities of a fortune extracted by dubious methods.

memories of Valley Forge and Morristown would powerfully affect the future political agendas of both Washington and Hamilton, who had to grapple with the defects of a weak central government

Where revolutions, by their nature, resisted excess government power, the opposite situation could be equally hazardous. "As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.

The painting also pinpointed an important quirk of Washington's face: the lazy right eye that slid off into the corner while the left eye stared straight ahead. To prepare for the equestrian

he would reorganize bankrupt roads and transfer control to himself.

Rockefeller also favored Archbold because he was wedded to Standard Oil business, whereas Rogers was often distracted by other interests.

because there was no place where I felt more at home in a public assembly than in this old church

My greatest fortune in life has been my son.

perhaps he had so thoroughly rationalized his own behavior that he saw himself in the same glowing, virtuous light as his son did.

As with industrial methods, Rockefeller broke down cycling into its component parts then perfected each movement.

He hoarded his money, worked incessantly, and retained a lonely air.

It is hard to exaggerate the power that Pierpont accrued.

So why did Senior procrastinate in giving him his money?

It is almost inconceivable that he did not suspect at moments that Archbold had learned some of his tricks from Senior.

Hamilton wanted logical proofs of religion, not revelation, and amply annotated his copy of A View of the Evidences of Christianity, by William Paley. "I have examined carefully the evidence of the Christian religion," he told one friend, "and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity, I should rather abruptly give my verdict in its favor."13 To

You see, this scheme is bound to work. It means an absolute control by us of the oil business.

Throughout his career, he operated in the realm of the possible, taking the world as it was, not as he wished it to be, and he often inveighed against a dogmatic insistence upon perfection.