342 Quotes by Ron Chernow

With a ready tongue and rapier wit, Hamilton could wound people more than he realized, and he was so nimble in debate that even bright people sometimes felt embarrassingly tongue-tied in his presence.

The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don’t necessarily offer safety and diversification.

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people,” he told Morris. “In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.”15.

He knew the western country from surveying; had the robust constitution to survive the winter woods; was mostly unflappable; had a mature appearance and sound judgment; and was a model youth, with no tincture of rowdiness in his nature. In certain ways, he was a very old young man.

Finally, he flung his hat on the ground in disgust and fumed, “Are these the men with whom I am to defend America?

He immediately had Rawlins summon stretcher bearers, but was dismayed when they removed the Union officer and overlooked the Confederate private. “Take this Confederate, too,” he said. “Take them both together; the war is over between them.”25 Grant seemed sickened by the carnage. “Let’s get away from this dreadful place,” he told an officer. “I suppose this work is part of the devil that is left in us all.

The American Revolution was to succeed because it was undertaken by skeptical men who knew that the same passions that toppled tyrannies could be applied to destructive ends. In a moment of acute anxiety a year earlier, John Adams had wondered what would happen if “the multitude, the vulgar, the herd, the rabble” maintained such open defiance of authority. 13.

If the party elected Burr, it would be exposed “to the disgrace of a defeat in an attempt to elevate to the first place in the government one of the worst men in the community.”14 Hamilton had never spoken about Adams and Jefferson in these terms. “The appointment of Burr as president would disgrace our country abroad,” he informed Sedgwick. “No agreement with him could be relied upon.”15.

Since Hamilton’s abiding literary sin was prolixity, the time and length constraints imposed by The Federalist may have given a salutary concision to his writing. For.