"I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be."

“There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself in acts of bravery and heroism.”

“Alexander Hamilton quotes by topic at AllthingsHamilton.com”

“Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.”

“If there be anything in a remark often to be met with, namely that there is, in the genius of the people of this country, a peculiar aptitude for mechanic improvements, it would operate as a forcible reason for giving opportunities to the exercise of that species of talent, by the propagation of manufactures.”

“Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.”

“If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies and the individuals of whom they are composed.... But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the larger society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such.”