Alexander Hamilton

Men are governed by their passions, and you must govern their passions.

There are some things which are not to be reasoned into, but to be felt.

The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact.

I consider the present crisis as an occasion for the friends of the Government to rouse and exert themselves.

Safety and happiness are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all ought to be sacrificed.

If we mean to be a commercial people, or even to be secure on our Atlantic side, we must in a great measure possess our selves of the means of naval annoyance and defense.

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

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

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

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.

A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.

The evils of a weak government are great and numerous.

The erection of a new empire, on the ruins of a former, is an arduous undertaking.

War, like other things, is a science to be acquired and perfected by diligence, by perseverance, by time, and by practice.

The art of war is the art of deception.

Power, when it is abused, is of all things the most odious and detestable.

It is not the province of any one State to make laws for the United States.

Happy it is when the people can see without the aid of a telescope.

Constitutions are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but to endure for ages.

It is a truth, which has been constantly verified by the experience of all ages and countries, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those whom they themselves have elected for the protection of them.