Quotes from Alexander Hamilton

I never expect a perfect work from an imperfect man.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

Who talks most about freedom and equality? Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand and a whip for affrighted slaves in the other?

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

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

Men are reasoning rather than reasonable animals.

A powerful, victorious ally is yet another name for master.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

For 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.

If we must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible.

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion.

Vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty.

The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

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.

To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.

Common interest may always be reckoned upon as the surest bond of sympathy.

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.

You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.

I think the first duty of society is justice.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.