Quotes from Ron Chernow

these affairs consumed less of Pierpont's time and interest than his true aphrodisiac—art collecting.

For the rest of her life, Eliza rotated among the homes of her five children, who provided her with more security than she had ever known with her prodigal husband.

Like many donors, Rockefeller wished to give freely, but Harper was constantly trying to speed up the process.

In their approach to business, the two men had often mirrored each other, stressing attention to detail, ruthlessly slashing costs, and keeping dividends low.

In "The Reynolds Pamphlet," Hamilton had exposed only his own folly. In the Adams pamphlet, he displayed both his own errant judgment and Adams's instability.

Cooke seemed invincible to competitors

Pierpont always denied his yacht was chosen for the sake of secrecy. "I do not know that that was a part of the consideration

With an exalted sense of his place in history, he viewed himself as a potential savior of the republic. He once told a friend, "Perhaps my sensibility is the effect of an exaggerated estimate of my services to the U[nited] States, but on such a subject every man will judge for himself.

I know he has much enjoyed our being in the house

He's never there, and yet he's always there

It also reflected a profound political logic. Hamilton knew that bondholders would feel a stake in preserving any government that owed them money. If the federal government, not the states, was owed the money, creditors would shift their main allegiance to the central government.

Yet they never seemed to get along.

The American Revolution had succeeded because it was "a free, regular and deliberate act of the nation" and had been conducted with "a spirit of justice and humanity." It was, in fact, a revolution written in parchment and defined by documents, petitions, and other forms of law.

Machiavellian

What I fear is that he may perhaps talk too much which would be very undesirable

As a result of John's foresight in assigning him to New York, William's career became closely intertwined with that of Wall Street—to an uncomfortable extent, from John's later perspective.

Yet Big Bill never entirely lost touch with his Rockefeller family.

Archbold became Rockefeller's proxy, picked successor, surrogate son, and court jester.

Sherman did not want to have to feed its citizens or assign extra troops to guard a sullen, restive population and ordered the evacuation of all residents. When the mayor pleaded that such an exodus would result in "appalling and heart-rending suffering," Sherman replied in lapidary prose: "War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it . . . You might as well appeal against the thunder storm as against these terrible hardships of war.

liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power. . . . [T]he former rather than the latter is apparently most to be apprehended by the United States.

He stressed the displeasure of European investors with American railroads

would mark the start of periodic warfare between

George Washington was always the maestro of eloquent silences.

Rockefeller felt no discomfort at being surrounded by humble people