Alexander Hamilton Quotes

People sometimes attribute my success to my genius; all the genius I know anything about is hard work.

Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.

When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government.

One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are.

The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.

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

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

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.

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.

Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.

To my utter astonishment I saw an airship descending over my cow lot. It was occupied by six of the strangest beings I ever saw. They were jabbering together, but we could not understand a word they said.

It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

This process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any many who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.

[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.

I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.

A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense.

The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.

Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.

I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation; but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.

It is the Press which has corrupted our political morals - and it is to the Press we must look for the means of our political regeneration.

Remember civil and religious liberty always go together: if the foundation of the one be sapped, the other will fall of course.

Learn to think continentally.

It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.

The honor of a nation is its life. Deliberately to abandon it is to commit an act of political suicide.

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.

The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge right or make good decision.

If it were to be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws - the first growing out of the last . . . . A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.

As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.

When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.

Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness.

This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them.

No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.

I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.

. . . [The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable: There is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution.

The love for our native land strengthens our individual and national character.

Perhaps myself the first, at some expense of popularity, to unfold the true character of Jefferson, it is too late for me to become his apologist. Nor can I have any disposition to do it. I admit that his politics are tinctured with fanaticism, that he is too much in earnest in his democracy, that he has been a mischievous enemy to the principle measures of our past administration, that he is crafty & persevering in his objects, that he is not scrupulous about the means of success, nor very mindful of truth, and that he is a contemptible hypocrite.

A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing; it will be powerfull cement of our union. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.

It is of the greatest consequence that the debt should, with the consent of the creditors, be remoulded into such a shape as will bring the expenditure of the nation to a level with its income. Till this shall be accomplished, the finances of the United States will never wear a proper countenance. Arrears of interest, continually accruing, will be as continual a monument, either of inability, or of ill faith and will not cease to have an evil influence on public credit.