Alexander Hamilton

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Biography of Alexander Hamilton
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Quote	Categories	Rating	Rate
"...for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested, that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion."	Age, Anger, Experience
"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. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."	Effort, Genius, Lies
"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."	Age, Men, Nature
"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."	Ability, Adversity, Difficulty
"Those who stand for nothing fall for anything."	Miscellaneous
"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."	Age, Men
"Power may be justly compared to a great river; while kept within its bounds it is both beautiful and useful, but when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it goes."	Beauty, Destruction, Excellence
"When occasions present themselves, in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardians of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion, in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection."	Government, Duty
"These ceremonies and the National Statuary Hall will teach the youth of the land in succeeding generations as they come and go that the chief end of human effort in a sublunary view should be usefulness to mankind, and that all true fame which should be perpetuated by public pictures, statues, and monuments, is to be acquired only by noble deeds and high achievements and the establishment of a character founded upon the principles of truth, uprightness, and inflexible integrity."	Education
"The system ... is the best that the present views and circumstances of the country will permit."	Government
"Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives."	Government
"In the main it will be found that a power over a man's support [salary] is a power over his will."	Power

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Ability	Adversity	Age
Anger	Beauty	Destruction
Difficulty	Duty	Education
Effort	Excellence	Experience
Genius	Government	Honesty
Lies	Men	Miscellaneous
Nature	Power	Responsibility
Time	Truth	Writing