Quotes from Alexander Hamilton

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!

That experience is the parent of wisdom is an adage the truth of which is recognized by the wisest as well as the simplest of mankind.

The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.

To presume a want of motives for such contests . . . would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.

No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.

The honor of a nation is its life.

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it.

Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself?

Nothing is more natural to men in office, than to look with peculiar deference towards that authority to which they owe their official existence.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable - even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

People sometimes attribute my success to my genius; all the genius I know anything about is hard work.

The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.

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.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

The art of reading is to skip judiciously.

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death.

There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

The desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct; ... the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty.

Its objects are CONTRACTS with foreign nations which have the force of law, but derive it from the obligations of good faith.