Quotes from Ron Chernow

Whereas most other tycoons hired subordinates to oversee personal expenditures, Rockefeller supervised every detail

He preferred compromise to antitrust cases, which were slow, time-consuming, and fiendishly difficult to win.

Hamilton cast himself as "a warm advocate for limited monarchy and an unfeigned well-wisher to the present royal family.

Pierpont was already urging him to cut back his schedule.

But few companies followed the lead of Clark, Payne and invested in Standard Oil instead of taking payment.

As long as the right conditions were met, this controlling father was always happy to be generous.

As far as Archbold was concerned, Rockefeller was now in too deep to back out.

Fundada em 1746 para contrabalançar a influência da Igreja da Inglaterra, Princeton era um foco de posições presbiterianas e Whigs, pregava a liberdade religiosa e talvez parecesse uma escolha lógica para Hamilton.

The Corsair was a therapeutic, if expensive, toy for Pierpont.

Indeed, had he not possessed some charm, or at least cordiality, he could never have accomplished so much in the business world.

Frank incessantly gambled in stocks and commodities, further alienating his more prudent brother.

For Rockefeller, Rice was nothing but a blackmailer.

Some Washington observers floated scenarios of a constitutional showdown in which Johnson would deploy Grant and the military to silence Congress. Suddenly Grant's political tendencies became of more than theoretical interest. Ben Butler, now a Radical Republican, wondered privately whether "Grant can be trusted to disobey positive orders of his chief? When the hour of peril comes, shall we not be

Rockefeller always sat in the middle of the backseat.

once John D. Rockefeller, Sr., set his mind to something, he brought awesome powers of concentration to bear.

Washington had a more relaxed style with girls and used to say ruefully that he could govern men but not boys.

He continued to slip into depressions that he couldn't shake, and his triumphs seemed only to deepen his gloom. The sea alone would lighten his mood.

We were not rich, of course—far from it; but we had enough to eat and use and save—always.

Though only ten at the time and probably ignorant of what had happened—it's hard to imagine Eliza confiding such scandalous things to a young boy—John later ridiculed the rape charge and mocked the idea of his father fleeing justice.

Neither he nor anyone else could have predicted that this overweight, rheumatic, vain, pompous, gluttonous inebriate would be so ardent in battle.

In exchange for this extraordinary concession, Rockefeller and Flagler didn't simply try to squeeze the railroads—they were much too shrewd and subtle for that—but offered compelling incentives.

As always, Rockefeller floated serenely above the bustle, pretending to be oblivious to any wrongdoing

For you know me well enough, my good Sir, to be persuaded that I am not guilty of affectation when I tell you it is my great and sole desire to live and die, in peace and retirement, on my own farm.

Shy and bookish, she tended, like Rockefeller, to arrive at brilliant solutions by slow persistence.