480 Quotes by Alexander Hamilton

This position will not be disputed, so long as it is admitted that the desire of reward is one of the strongest incentives of human conduct, or that the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interest coincide with their duty. Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds...would on the contrary deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work . . .

Ambition without principle never was long under the guidance of good sense.

Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed.

Establish that a Government may decline a provision for its debts, though able to make it, and you overthrow all public morality, you unhinge all the principles that must preserve the limits of free constitutions.

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

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

There can be no time, no state of things, in which Credit is not essential to a Nation...

While the constitution continues to be read, and its principles known, the states, must, by every rational man, be considered as essential component parts of the union; and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former to the latter is totally inadmissible.

A national debt if it is not excessive will be to us a national blessing; it will be powerfull cement of our union. It will also create a necessity for keeping up taxation to a degree which without being oppressive, will be a spur to industry;