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Experience teaches, that men are often so much governed by what they are accustomed to see and practice, that the simplest and most obvious improvements . . . are adopted with hesitation, reluctance, and slow gradations.

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by 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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While the constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible.
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[Imeachable conduct is] misconduct by public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.
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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.
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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In the general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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But might not his [the president's] nomination be overruled? I grant it might, yet this could only be to make place for another nomination by himself. The person ultimately appointed must be object of his preference, though perhaps not in the first degree. It is also not very probable that his nomination would often be overruled.
Alexander Hamilton
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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.
Alexander Hamilton
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To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace.
Alexander Hamilton
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In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.
Alexander Hamilton
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As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in god and hate a saint.
Alexander Hamilton
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The law... dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.
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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Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation.
Alexander Hamilton
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We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is never found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.
Alexander Hamilton
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The awful discretion, which a court of impeachments must necessarily have, to doom to honor or to infamy the most confidential and the most distinguished characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the trust to a small number of persons.
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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Take mankind in general, they are vicious-their passions may be operated upon.
Alexander Hamilton
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It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of violent love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten, that the vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty.
Alexander Hamilton