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There may be in every government a few choice spirits, who may act from more worthy motives. One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are. Our prevailing passions are ambition and interest.
Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton
As the duties of superintending the national defense and of securing the public peace against foreign or domestic violence involve a provision for casualties and dangers to which no possible limits can be assigned, the power of making that provision ought to know no other bounds than the exigencies of the nation and the resources of the community.
Alexander Hamilton
I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Alexander Hamilton
[In the event of war, Americans would] 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.
Alexander Hamilton
Money is, with propriety, considered as the vital principle of the body politic as that which sustains its life and motion, and enables it to perform its most essential functions.
Alexander Hamilton
In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.
Alexander Hamilton
The inhabitants of territories, often the theatre of war, are unavoidably subject to frequent infringements on their rights, which serve to weaken their sense of those rights and by degrees, the people are brought to consider the soldiery not only as their protectors but as their superiors.
Alexander Hamilton
When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.
Alexander Hamilton
Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness.
Alexander Hamilton
You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.
Alexander Hamilton
As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in god and hate a saint.
Alexander Hamilton
When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection.
Alexander Hamilton
It is presumable that no country will be able to borrow of foreigners upon better terms than the United States, because none can, perhaps, afford so good security.
Alexander Hamilton
People sometimes attribute my success to my genius all the genius I know anything about is hard work.
Alexander Hamilton
Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.
Alexander Hamilton
But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union or consolidation, the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States.
Alexander Hamilton
An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.
Alexander Hamilton
[W]e must extend the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens - the only proper objects of government.
Alexander Hamilton
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
The same rule that teaches the propriety of a partition between the various branches of power, teaches us likewise that this partition ought to be so contrived as to render the one independent of the other.
Alexander Hamilton
The system is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit.
Alexander Hamilton