Ron Chernow Quotes

From the outset, the young Hamilton had phenomenal stamina for sustained work: ambitious, orphaned boys do not enjoy the option of idleness.

Gordian knot

Grant explained to Porter his aversion to profanities, saying swearing helps to rouse a man’s anger; and when a man flies into a passion his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him.50

Grant’s catatonic state didn’t last. Soon he was devoting four or five hours daily to his memoirs,

Grant’s fortuitous move to Illinois on the eve of the election had monumental consequences, conveniently situating him in the president’s home state and overtly pro-Union northern Illinois. It also pl...

Grant’s postwar fame didn’t spare him the bane of his father-in-law’s glaring presence. After he and Julia settled into their Georgetown home, Colonel Dent had no qualms about moving in with them, for...

Hamilton and Madison came to symbolize opposite ends of the political spectrum. At the time of the Federalist essays, however, they were so close in style and outlook that scholars find it hard to sor...

Hamilton and Madison were again pitted in a fundamental contest over whether the executive or legislative branch would run American foreign policy. Hamilton was relieved when Washington denied Congres...

Hamilton and others had argued that the Constitution transcended state governments and directly expressed the will of the American people. Hence, the Constitution began We the People of the United Sta...

Hamilton articulated fundamental concepts that he later expanded upon in The Federalist Papers, concepts central to the future of American jurisprudence. In renting the property to Waddington, he decl...

Hamilton believed that the United States should preemptively seize Spanish Florida and Louisiana, lest they fall into hostile French hands. To accomplish this, he directed General James Wilkinson to a...

Hamilton did not think Burr would be a harmless, lackadaisical president. He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing, Hamilton told...

Hamilton drew freely on statements he had made at the Constitutional Convention to distinguish his elective monarch from a king. The British king, he pointed out, was hereditary, could not be removed...

Hamilton had always regarded the judiciary as the final fortress of liberty and the most vulnerable branch of government. John Marshall remedied that deficiency, and many of the great Supreme Court de...

Hamilton had analyzed his own rejection thus: I am a stranger in this country. I have no property here, no connections. If I have talents and integrity…these are justly deemed very spurious titles in...

Hamilton induced Philip Schuyler to renege on his pledged support for Duane in favor of King.

Hamilton knew the symbolic value of rapid decision making and phenomenal energy. As he wrote during the Revolution, If a Government appears to be confident of its own powers, it is the surest way to i...

Hamilton lacked the temperament of a true-blue revolutionary. He saw too clearly that greater freedom could lead to greater disorder and, by a dangerous dialectic, back to a loss of freedom. Hamilton’...

Hamilton lent his opinion the erudition of a treatise and the warmth of a manifesto. The essence of it was that government must possess the means to attain ends for which it was established or the bon...

Hamilton never carried out his plans for Louisiana or Florida, much less for Spanish America. As the original rationale for his army—defense against a French invasion—was increasingly undercut by peac...