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 - Alexander Hamilton
When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall. - Alexander Hamilton
Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation. - Alexander Hamilton
The changes in the human condition are uncertain and frequent. Many, on whom fortune has bestowed her favours, may trace their family to a more unprosperous station; and many who are now in obscurity, may look back upon the affluence and exalted rank of their ancestors. - Alexander Hamilton
The same state of the passions which fits the multitude, who have not sufficient stock of reason and knowledge to guide them, for opposition to tyranny and oppression, very naturally leads them to a contempt and disregard of all authority. - Alexander Hamilton
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. - Alexander Hamilton
A garden, you know, is a very usual refuge of a disappointed politician. Accordingly, I have purchased a few acres about nine miles from town, have built a house, and am cultivating a garden. - Alexander Hamilton
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint. - Alexander Hamilton
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. - Alexander Hamilton
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. - Alexander Hamilton
A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one. - Alexander Hamilton
I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. - Alexander Hamilton
Who talks most about freedom and equality? Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand and a whip for affrighted slaves in the other? - Alexander Hamilton
A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing. - Alexander Hamilton
When men exercise their reason coolly and freely on a variety of distinct questions, they inevitably fall into different opinions on some of them. When they are governed by a common passion, their opinions, if they are to be called, will be the same. - Alexander Hamilton
It is long since I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value. - Alexander Hamilton
Every man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no other end, in all his actions, but private interest. By this interest we must govern him, and by means of it, make him cooperate to public good, notwithstanding his unsatiable avarice and ambition. - Alexander Hamilton
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 Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. - Alexander Hamilton