Quotes by Alexander Hamilton

Men give me some credit for genius.  All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly.  Day and night it is before me.  I explore it in all its bearings.  My mind becomes pervaded with it.   Then the effort which I make is what the people call the fruit of genius.  It is the fruit of labor and thought.

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. 

Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

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.

We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.

Every power vested in a government is in its nature sovereign, and includes by force of the term a right to employ all the means requisite . . . to the attainment of the ends of such power.

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.

Man is a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

There can be no profit in the making or selling of things to be destroyed in war. Men may think that they have such profit, but in the end the profit will turn out to be a loss.