480 Quotes by Alexander Hamilton

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

Good constitutions are formed upon a comparison of the liberty of the individual with the strength of government: If the tone of either be too high, the other will be weakened too much. It is the happiest possible mode of conciliating these objects, to institute one branch peculiarly endowed with sensibility, another with knowledge and firmness. Through the opposition and mutual control of these bodies, the government will reach, in its regular operations, the perfect balance between liberty and power.

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

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

Manufacturing establishments not only occasion a positive augmentation of the produce and revenue of the society . . . they contribute essentially to rendering them greater than they could possibly be, without such establishments. These circumstances are . . . greater scope for the diversity of talents and dispositions which discriminate men from each other.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

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.

The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be the most useful as well as the most productive source of national wealth, and has accordingly become a primary object of their political cares.

What plan for the regulation of the militia may be pursued by the national government is impossible to be foreseen...The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious if it were capable of being carried into execution... Little more can reasonably be aimed at with the respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed and equipped ; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.