Quotes from Ron Chernow

Perhaps Rockefeller really did have God on his side, for his barrels survived the flooding intact.

Hamilton wanted the votes of individual members recorded. Instead, the convention chose to proceed on a one-state, one-vote basis, which meant that Hamilton's vote would likely be nullified by his two fellow delegates.

it is better at present not to call attention to the great power of trio, which might increase public sentiment against that power throughout United States.

He was not a man to abandon a project that had received his blessing.

Had he not been unfairly implicated, Rockefeller might have enjoyed the rebuke delivered to Rogers.

While Tarbell's articles were running, Rockefeller, his wife, his son, and two of his three daughters were afflicted by serious medical problems or nervous strain.

On November 26, 1799, she gave birth to her seventh child, Eliza, but she continued to shelter strays and waifs, a practice that she and Alexander had started in adopting Fanny Antill.

Rockefeller succeeded because he believed in the long-term prospects of the business and never treated it as a mirage that would soon fade.

Understandably, the Rockefellers did not wish to broadcast their misfortunes to the world.

It proved to be the luckiest stroke of his career.

People tended either to embrace Hamilton or to abhor him;

It is the food of my hopes, the object of my wishes, the only enjoyment of my life - Alexander Hamilton

In 1807, Burr was arrested for treason and for trying to incite a war against Spain. He was acquitted by Chief Justice John Marshall, who applied a strict definition of treason. The acquittal only sharpened Jefferson's contempt for "the original error of establishing a judiciary independent of the nation

From his reading of history, Hamilton concluded a few essays later that war was an inescapable fact of life: "the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace."54

Precisely because he lost the antitrust suit, Rockefeller was converted from a mere millionaire, with an estimated net worth of $300 million in 1911, into something just short of history's first billionaire.

It never occurred to the Rockefellers to trade up to a more socially prestigious denomination. "Most Americans when they accumulate money climb the golden spires of the nearest Episcopal Church," H. L. Mencken later observed.

the House of Morgan wasn't a multinational bank but an American bank with partnerships abroad.

Searching for oil was wildly unpredictable, whereas refining seemed safe and methodical by comparison.

This venture envisioned a new refiners' cartel, headed by a central board that would negotiate advantageous terms with the railroads and maintain prices by assigning refining quotas to members.

For many years, the Rothschilds, the Nobels, and Standard Oil circled around each other, each trying to forge links with a second party to isolate the third.

Of the 155 schools, only 23 required more than a high-school education.

Confidentially I prefer not to have it known where I am.

Imagining that the companies would be quite lucrative, Washington had no qualms about businessmen booking large profits as long as their work served the public weal and provided a model for future government action.

the tasks piled upon Coster had grown "far heavier than any one man ought to bear, or could bear with safety.