Quotes from Ron Chernow

He embodied an enduring archetype: the obscure immigrant who comes to America, re-creates himself, and succeeds despite a lack of proper birth and breeding.

At this, Hamilton dropped any pose of civility and chastised Monroe, saying "your representation is totally false.

I have never met anyone so attractive.

leaving the Morgan family angry and bewildered.

Of the 35,000 Standard shares, Rockefeller held nearly 9,000, or three times the amount of Flagler, Harkness, Pratt, or Payne.)

Back at 23 Wall Street, Lamont received a wire from Jack Morgan expressing disgust with Mexico. Jack thought it a point of family honor to make sure Mexico repaid his father's 1899 loan: "I did not think any Government of modern times would so frankly proclaim its complete dishonesty or its abandonment of all decent finance or morals. Hope you did not have too trying a time, and congratulate you in getting out before they stole your pocketbook or watch.

Hamilton did not think Burr would be a harmless, lackadaisical president. "He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing," Hamilton told Gouverneur Morris. From his legal practice, Hamilton knew that Burr had exorbitant debts and might be susceptible to bribes from foreign governments. He briefed Federalists about the scandals involving Burr and the Holland Company and the gross trickery behind the Manhattan Company.

when it came to the parallel economic upheavals of the period—the industrial revolution, the expansion of global trade, the growth of banks and stock exchanges—Hamilton was an American prophet without peer. No other founding father straddled both of these revolutions—only Franklin even came close—and therein lay Hamilton's novelty and greatness.

a face so broad and ruddy that he was dubbed "Bacon Face.

What makes Flagler's ethics consequential for Rockefeller's career was that he was the mastermind of many negotiations with the railroads—the single most controversial aspect of Standard Oil history.

To his astonishment, the officers agreed with Lee's views and in a manner, scoffed Hamilton, that "would have done honor to the most honorable society of midwives."27 Washington preferred to operate by consensus

Rockefeller was intensely aware of the opposite sex yet, knowing of his father's history, kept his impulses under tight control.

They loaned out so much against stocks and bonds that by October 1907 as much as half the bank loans in New York were backed by securities as collateral—an extremely shaky base for the system.

His tightly compressed lips expressed a fierce determination and a guarded nature.

One of the very nice things about investing in the stock market is that you learn about all different aspects of the economy. It's your window into a very large world.

I don't think that a mutual fund that invests exclusively in biotech start-ups or invests exclusively in companies in Thailand offers any great safety or diversification.

I have developed a very strong partiality for the dead: they don't talk back, they don't sue, and they don't have angry relatives.

We really haven't had very much experience with people funding their retirement out of the stock market, and we don't know, frankly, how it would work under every scenario.

There is a kind of fear, approaching a panic, that's spreading through the Baby Boom Generation, which has suddenly discovered that it will have to provide for its own retirement.

The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets, because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.

The history of Wall Street is inseparable from New York.

Partly because his life ended before the age of 50, Hamilton was defined by the other founding fathers, and he managed, with amazing consistency, to alienate most of them.

The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance.

You don't want too much fear in a market, because people will be blinded to some very good buying opportunities. You don't want too much complacency because people will be blinded to some risk.