Alexander Hamilton

To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.

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.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

In the usual progress of things, the necessities of a nation in every stage of its existence will be found at least equal to its resources.

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

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

The honor of a nation is its life.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

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.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Power over a man's subsistence is power over his will.

Real firmness is good for anything; strut is good for nothing.

It is the advertiser who provides the paper for the subscriber. It is not to be disputed, that the publisher of a newspaper in this country, without a very exhaustive advertising support, would receive less reward for his labor than the humblest mechanic.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.