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

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
Good
Rarely
Useful
Words
Nothing
Hard
Real
Thing
Strut
Every
Firmness

More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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The experience of past ages may inform us, that when the circumstances of a people render them distressed, their rulers generally recur to severe, cruel, and oppressive measures. Instead of endeavoring to establish their authority in the affection of their subjects, they think they have no security but in their fear.
Alexander Hamilton
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The system is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit.
Alexander Hamilton
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To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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The natural effect of low interest is to increase trade and industry because undertakings of every kind can be prosecuted with greater advantage.
Alexander Hamilton
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If it be said that the legislative body are themselves the constitutional judges of their own powers, and that the construction they put upon them is conclusive upon the other departments, it may be answered, that this cannot be the natural presumption, where it is not be collected from any particular provisions in the Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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Opinion, whether well or ill-founded, is the governing principle of human affairs
Alexander Hamilton
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When you assemble from your several counties in the Legislature, were every member to be guided only by the apparent interest of his county, government would be impracticable. There must be a perpetual accomodation and sacrifice of local advantage to general expediency.
Alexander Hamilton
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Were it not that it might require too long a discussion, it would not be difficult to demonstrate that a large and well-organized republic can scarcely lose its liberty from any other cause than that of anarchy, to which a contempt of the laws is the high-road.
Alexander Hamilton
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No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.
Alexander Hamilton
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There is something so far-fetched and so extravagant in the idea of danger to liberty from the militia that one is at a loss whether to treat it with gravity or with raillery whether to consider it as a mere trial of skill, like the paradoxes of rhetoricians as a disingenuous artifice to instil prejudices at any price or as the serious.
Alexander Hamilton
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I expect we shall be told, that the Militia of the country is its natural bulwark, and would be at all times equal to the national defence...The facts, which from our own experience forbid a reliance of this kind, are too recent to permit us to be the dupes of such a suggestion.
Alexander Hamilton
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A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master.
Alexander Hamilton
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...that standing army can never be formidable (threatening) to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in the use of arms.
Alexander Hamilton
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A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.
Alexander Hamilton
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Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?
Alexander Hamilton
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A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.
Alexander Hamilton
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Man is either governed by his own laws - freedom - or the laws of another - slavery. Are you willing to become slaves? Will you give up your freedom, your life and your property without a single struggle? No man has a right to rule over his fellow creatures.
Alexander Hamilton
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These powers ought to exist without limitation, because it is impossible to foresee or to define the extent and variety of national exigencies, and the correspondent extent and variety of the means which may be necessary to satisfy them.
Alexander Hamilton