Alexander Hamilton was an American statesman, politician, legal scholar, military commander, lawyer, banker, and economist. He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. These Alexander Hamilton quotes will motivate you in life.
Best Alexander Hamilton Quotes
- “People sometimes attribute my success to my genius; all the genius I know anything about is hard work.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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
- “Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Man is either governed by his own laws – freedom – or the laws of another – slavery. Are you willing to become slaves? Will you give up your freedom, your life, and your property without a single struggle? No man has a right to rule over his fellow-creatures.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“One great error is that we suppose mankind more honest than they are.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “The people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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
- “The true principle of a republic is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect, in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. The great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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
- “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.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “The loss of liberty to a generous mind is worse than death.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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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“Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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 the divinity itself; and can never be erased.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “[H]owever weak our country maybe, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Remember civil and religious liberty always go together: if the foundation of the one be sapped, the other will fall of course.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“Our countrymen have all the folly of the ass and all the passiveness of the sheep.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has, at all times, characterized political parties.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “The natural cure for an ill-administration, in a popular or representative constitution, is a change of men.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Americans rouse – be unanimous, be virtuous, be firm, exert your courage, trust in Heaven, and nobly defy the enemies both of God and man!” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“Every nation ought to have a right to provide for its own happiness.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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.” ~ Alexander Hamilton Quotes
- “I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“The love for our native land strengthens our individual and national character.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “This process of election affords a moral certainty that the office of President will seldom fall to the lot of any many who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “The art of reading is to skip judiciously.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“I never expect to see a perfect work from an imperfect man.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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
- “A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“Learn to think continentally.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “I would die to preserve the law upon a solid foundation, but take away liberty, and the foundation is destroyed.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable: There is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable, no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Now, mark my words. So long as we are a young and virtuous people, this instument will bind us together in mutual interests, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness. But when we become old and corrupt, it will bind no longer.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“A promise must never be broken.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” ~ Alexander Hamilton Quotes
- “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
- “The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
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“Every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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
- “We are attempting, by this Constitution, to abolish factions, and to unite all parties for the general welfare.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “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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“Great Ambition, unchecked by principle, or the love of Glory, is an unruly Tyrant.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “In a government framed for durable liberty, not less regard must be paid to giving the magistrate a proper degree of authority, to make and execute the laws with rigour, than to guarding against encroachments upon the rights of the community. As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “As to Taxes, they are evidently inseparable from government. It is impossible without them to pay the debts of the nation, to protect it from foreign danger, or to secure individuals from lawless violence and rapine.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “It is of the greatest consequence that the debt should, with the consent of the creditors, be remolded into such a shape as will bring the expenditure of the nation to a level with its income. Till this shall be accomplished, the finances of the United States will never wear a proper countenance. Arrears of interest, continually accruing, will be as continual a monument, either of inability or of ill faith and will not cease to have an evil influence on public credit.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
- “Perhaps myself the first, at some expense of popularity, to unfold the true character of Jefferson, it is too late for me to become his apologist. Nor can I have any disposition to do it. I admit that his politics are tinctured with fanaticism, that he is too much in earnest in his democracy, that he has been a mischievous enemy to the principle measures of our past administration, that he is crafty & persevering in his objects, that he is not scrupulous about the means of success, nor very mindful of truth, and that he is a contemptible hypocrite.” ~ Alexander Hamilton
