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

Alexander Hamilton

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Alexander Hamilton
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More quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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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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The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment on a uniformity of principles and habits on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.
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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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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The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.
Alexander Hamilton
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Happy will it be for ourselves, and most honorable for human nature, if we have wisdom and virtue enough to set so glorious an example to mankind!
Alexander Hamilton
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To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.
Alexander Hamilton
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What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws.
Alexander Hamilton
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The [president] has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction. . . .
Alexander Hamilton
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Every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government.
Alexander Hamilton
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The origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent?
Alexander Hamilton
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In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects.
Alexander Hamilton
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Take mankind as they are, and what are they governed by? Their passions.
Alexander Hamilton
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The vigour of government is essential to the security of liberty. . . . a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.
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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To attempt to enumerate the complicated variety of mischiefs in the whole system of the social economy, which proceed from a neglect of the maxims that uphold public credit, and justify the solicitude manifested by the House on this point, would be an improper intrusion on their time and patience.
Alexander Hamilton
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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
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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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The love for our native land strengthens our individual and national character.
Alexander Hamilton