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Has it not. . . invariably been found that momentary passions, and immediate interests, have a more active and imperious control over human conduct than general or remote considerations of policy, utility and justice?

Alexander Hamilton

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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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It is a singular capriciousness of the human mind, that after all the admonitions we have had from experience on this head, there should still be found men, who object to the new constitution for deviating from a principle which has been found the bane of the old.
Alexander Hamilton
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[T]here is not a syllable in the plan under consideration which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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The Convention probably foresaw what it has been a principal aim of these papers to inculcate that the danger which most threatens our political welfare is, that the state governments will finally sap the foundations of the Union.
Alexander Hamilton
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... for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.
Alexander Hamilton
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To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.
Alexander Hamilton
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The changes in the human condition are uncertain and frequent. Many, on whom fortune has bestowed her favours, may trace their family to a more unprosperous station and many who are now in obscurity, may look back upon the affluence and exalted rank of their ancestors.
Alexander Hamilton
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No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.
Alexander Hamilton
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Responsibility, in order to be reasonable, must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party, and in order to be effectual, must relate to operations of that power, of which a ready and proper judgment can be formed by the constituents.
Alexander Hamilton
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The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.
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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For my part, I sincerely esteem the Constitution, a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests.
Alexander Hamilton
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To watch the progress of such endeavors is the office of a free press. To give us early alarm and put us on our guard against encroachments of power. This then is a right of utmost importance, one for which, instead of yielding it up, we ought rather to spill our blood.
Alexander Hamilton
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Necessity, especially in politics, often occasions false hopes, false reasonings, and a system of measures, correspondingly erroneous.
Alexander Hamilton
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The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.
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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The idea of governing at all times by the simple force of law (which we have been told is the only admissible principle of republican government) has no place but in the reveries of those political doctors whose sagacity disdains the admonitions of experimental instruction.
Alexander Hamilton
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There is one transcendant advantage belonging to the province of the State governments . . . -I mean the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice.
Alexander Hamilton
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If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.
Alexander Hamilton
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Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the government with restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every break of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country.
Alexander Hamilton