Quotes from Alexander Hamilton

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

Power over a man's subsistence is power over his will.

Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Learn to think continentally.

Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite… to the attainment of the ends of such power.

In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support (salary) is a power over his will.

In the general course of human nature, a power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself and can never be erased.

Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have is this. When I have a subject in mind. I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it... the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.

Power may be justly compared to a great river while kept within its bounds it is both beautiful and useful, but when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it goes.

Power over a man's subsistence amounts to power over his will.

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

Such a wife as I want... must be young, handsome I lay most stress upon a good shape, sensible a little learning will do, well-bread, chaste, and tender. As to religion, a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in God and hate a saint.

The system is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit.

There are approximately 1,010,300 words in the English language, but I could never string enough words together to properly explain how much I want to hit you with a chair."

To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens the moment they put foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.

Your people, sir, is nothing but a great beast!

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Divide et impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.