Alexander Hamilton Quotes

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.

There is a contagion in example which few men have sufficient force of mind to resist.

These are not vague inferences . . . but they are solid conclusions drawn from the natural and necessary progress of human affairs.

If the exercise of power of internal taxation by the Union should be discovered on experiment to be really inconvenient, the federal government may then forbear the use of it . . .

If the Constitution is adopted (and it was) the Union will be in fact and in theory an association of States or a Confederacy.

In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.

The system is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit.

Measures which serve to abridge the free competition of foreign Articles, have a tendency to occasion an enhancement of prices.

It is presumable that no country will be able to borrow of foreigners upon better terms than the United States, because none can, perhaps, afford so good security.

There can be no profit in the making or selling of things to be destroyed in war. Men may think that they have such profit, but in the end the profit will turn out to be a loss.

Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security.

It will follow that that government ought to be clothed with all powers requisite to complete execution of its trust.

[I]n framing a Government for a nation we ought, in those provisions which are designed to be permanent, to calculate not on temporary, but on permanent causes of expence.

Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite . . . to the attainment of the ends of such power.

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.

The institution of delegated power implies that there is a portion of virtue and honor among mankind which may be a reasonable foundation of confidence.

The passions of a revolution are apt to hurry even good men into excesses.

The power of creating new funds upon new objects of taxation, by its own authority, would enable the national government to borrow as far as its necessities might require.

The superiority...enjoyed by nations that have...perfected a branch of industry, constitutes a...formidable obstacle.

A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may support itself without any internal corruptions. The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.

The treaties of the United States, to have any force at all, must be considered as part of the law of the land.

They are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign.

The circumstances that endanger the safety of nations are infinite, and for this reason no constitutional shackles can wisely be imposed on the power to which the care of it is committed.

[A] power equal to every possible contingency must exist somewhere in the government . . .

The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded.

A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association.

I propose . . . . The conformity of the proposed Constitution to the true principles of republican government.

The attributes of sovereignty are now enjoyed by every state in the Union.

Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American Ground?

An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the state for the acquisition of wealth.No. 75

When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall.

Again and again in his career, Hamilton committed the same political error: he never knew when to stop, and the resulting excesses led him into irremediable indiscretions.

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?

As often is the case with addictions, the fanciful notion of a gradual discontinuance only provided a comforting pretext for more sustained indulgence.

Power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing.

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard against the oppression of its rulers but to guard one part of society against the injustice of the other part.

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

Power over a man's subsistence is power over his will.

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

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.