342 Quotes by Ron Chernow

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.

The rancor ushered in a golden age of literary assassination in American politics. No etiquette had yet evolved to define the legitimate boundaries of dissent. Poison-pen artists on both sides wrote vitriolic essays that were overly partisan, often paid scant heed to accuracy, and sought visceral impact.

Jay was attacked with peculiar venom. Near his New York home, the walls of a building were defaced with the gigantic words, 'Damn John Jay. Damn everyone that won’t damn John Jay. Damn everyone that won’t put up lights in the windows and sit up all night damning John Jay.

A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.)

The free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free nation. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s, but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side—and superstition, ambition, and ignorance on the other.

My family is American," Ulysses later declared proudly, "and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.

Hamilton’s life was so tumultuous that only an audacious novelist could have dreamed it up

Washingtongrew as a leader because he engaged in searching self- criticism. “I can bear to hearof imputed or real errors,” he once wrote. “The man who wishes to stand well in theopinion of others must do this, because he is thereby enabled to correct his faultsor remove prejudices which are imbibed against him.”41 The one thing Washingtoncould not abide was when people published criticisms of him without first givinghim a chance to respond privately

As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.