Ron Chernow Quotes & Sayings

A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.) — Ron Chernow

Princeton applicants had to know Virgil, Cicero's orations, and Latin grammar and also had to be 'so well acquainted with Greek as to render any part of the four Evangelists in that language into Latin or English. — Ron Chernow

As the bull market goes on, people who take great risks achieve great rewards, seemingly without punishment. It's like crime without punishment or sex without sin. — Ron Chernow

The task of government was not to stop selfish striving - a hopeless task - but to harness it for the public good. — Ron Chernow

Unlike Jefferson, Hamilton never saw the creation of America as a magical leap across a chasm to an entirely new landscape, and he always thought the New World had much to learn from the Old. Probably — Ron Chernow

In waiting for the glorious moment of that first book contract, writers must have giant reservoirs of patience. Yet they must persevere because they don't know the destiny that is being worked out for them. They creep humbly along the ground, without the spacious aerial vision of their lives that would show them the destiny in store for them. — Ron Chernow

I don't think that a mutual fund that invests exclusively in biotech start-ups or invests exclusively in companies in Thailand offers any great safety or diversification. — Ron Chernow

We have left behind the rosy agrarian rhetoric and slaveholding reality of Jeffersonian democracy and reside in the bustling world of trade, industry, stock markets, and banks that Hamilton envisioned. (Hamilton's staunch abolitionism formed an integral feature of this economic vision.) He has also emerged as the uncontested visionary in anticipating the shape and powers of the federal government. At a time when Jefferson and Madison celebrated legislative power as the purest expression of the popular will, Hamilton argued for a dynamic executive branch and an independent judiciary, along with a professional military, a central bank, and an advanced financial system. Today, we are indisputably the heirs to Hamilton's America, and to repudiate his legacy is, in many ways, to repudiate the modern world. — Ron Chernow

Finally, he flung his hat on the ground in disgust and fumed, "Are these the men with whom I am to defend America? — Ron Chernow

In theory, Jefferson could have fathered all of Sally Hemings's children. Fawn M. Brodie has written, "Jefferson was not only not 'distant' from Sally Hemings but in the same house nine months before the births of each of her seven children and she conceived no children when he was not there."54 Jefferson freed only two slaves in his lifetime and another five in his will, and all belonged to the Hemings family, though he excluded Sally. On her deathbed, Sally Hemings told her son Madison that he and his siblings were Jefferson's children. In 1998, DNA tests confirmed that Jefferson (or some male in his family) had likely fathered at least one of Sally Hemings's children, Eston. Reading between the lines of "Phocion," one surmises that Hamilton knew all about Sally Hemings, quite possibly from Angelica Church. — Ron Chernow

It was, Eliza Hamilton Holly noted pointedly, the imperative duty that Eliza had bequeathed to all her children: Justice shall be done to the memory of my Hamilton. — Ron Chernow

Washington must have seen that Hamilton, for all his brains and daring, sometimes lacked judgment and had to be supervised carefully. — Ron Chernow

[Philip's death was] beyond comparison the most afflicting of my life ... He was truly a fine youth. But why should I repine? It was the will of heaven and he is now out of the reach of the seductions and calamities of a world full of folly, full of vice, full of danger, of least value in proportion as it is best known. I firmly trust also that he has safely reached the haven of eternal repose and felicity. (Alexander Hamilton letter to Benjamin Rush about the death of his 19-year old son from mortal wounds inflicted from a duel.) — Ron Chernow

With only three executive departments, each secretary wielded considerable power. Moreover, departmental boundaries were not well defined, allowing each secretary to roam across a wide spectrum of issues. This was encouraged by Washington, who frequently requested opinions from his entire cabinet on an issue. It particularly galled Jefferson that Hamilton, with his keen appetite for power, poached so frequently on his turf. In fact, Hamilton's opinions were so numerous and his influence so pervasive that most historians regard him as having been something akin to a prime minister. If Washington was head of state, then Hamilton was the head of government, the active force in the administration. — Ron Chernow

The American Revolution was to succeed because it was undertaken by skeptical men who knew that the same passions that toppled tyrannies could be applied to destructive ends. — Ron Chernow

The most damning and hypocritical critiques of his allegedly aristocratic economic system emanated from the most aristocratic southern slaveholders, who deflected attention from their own nefarious deeds by posing as populist champions and assailing the northern financial and mercantile interests aligned with Hamilton. As will be seen, the national consensus that the slavery issue should be tabled to preserve the union meant that the southern plantation economy was effectively ruled off-limits to political discussion, while Hamilton's system, by default, underwent the most searching scrutiny. Few, — Ron Chernow

In the 1920s, Wall Street was a world that was really dominated by professional speculators and stock pools. These people had a monopoly over information. — Ron Chernow

If you go back to the time of J.P. Morgan, the world of high finance was completely wholesale. The prestigious investment banks on Wall Street appealed exclusively to large corporations, governments, and to extremely wealthy individuals. — Ron Chernow

In the 1970s we saw a massive shift of household savings from the banks to the brokerage firms. — Ron Chernow

There is a kind of fear, approaching a panic, that's spreading through the Baby Boom Generation, which has suddenly discovered that it will have to provide for its own retirement. — Ron Chernow

Jay was attacked with peculiar venom. Near his New York home, the walls of a building were defaced with the gigantic words, 'Damn John Jay. Damn everyone that won't damn John Jay. Damn everyone that won't put up lights in the windows and sit up all night damning John Jay. — Ron Chernow

In a moment of acute anxiety a year earlier, John Adams had wondered what would happen if "the multitude, the vulgar, the herd, the rabble" maintained such open defiance of authority. 13 — Ron Chernow

I think those who invest in mutual funds want someone else to do the thinking for them. But the fact that they can move the money around the family of mutual funds just through a phone call lets them feel that they can play tycoons. — Ron Chernow

Of all the founders, Hamilton probably had the gravest doubts about the wisdom of the masses and wanted elected leaders who would guide them. This was the great paradox of his career: his optimistic view of America's potential coexisted with an essentially pessimistic view of human nature. His faith in Americans never quite matched his faith in America itself. It — Ron Chernow

Once Hamilton was initiated into the cause of American liberty, his life acquired an even more headlong pace that never slackened. — Ron Chernow

This letter, my very dear Eliza, will not be delivered to you unless I shall first have terminated my earthly career to begin, as I humbly hope from redeeming grace and divine mercy, a happy immortality. If it had been possible for me to have avoided the interview, my love for you and my precious children would have been alone a decisive motive. But it was not possible without sacrifices which would have rendered me unworthy of your esteem. I need not tell you of the pangs I feel from the idea of quitting you and exposing you to the anguish which I know you would feel. Nor could I dwell on the topic lest it should unman me. The consolations of religion, my beloved, can alone support you and these you have a right to enjoy. Fly to the bosom of your God and be comforted. With my last idea, I shall cherish the sweet hope of meeting you in a better world. Adieu best of wives and best of women. Embrace all my darling children for me. Ever yours A H72 — Ron Chernow

The richly cadenced prose is hypnotic, the research prodigious, the analysis acute, the mood spellbinding, and the cast of characters mythic in scale. I cannot conceive of a better book about Capitol Hill. An unforgettable, epic achievement in the art of biography. — Ron Chernow

The painting also pinpointed an important quirk of Washington's face: the lazy right eye that slid off into the corner while the left eye stared straight ahead. To prepare for the equestrian — Ron Chernow

Daring in design, cautious in execution - it was a formula he made his own throughout his career. — Ron Chernow

The suspect nature of these stories can be seen in the anecdote Jefferson told of Hamilton visiting his lodging in 1792 and inquiring about three portraits on the wall. "They are my trinity of the three greatest men the world has ever produced," Jefferson replied: "Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, and John Locke." Hamilton supposedly replied, "The greatest man that ever lived was Julius Casar. — Ron Chernow

Any bull market covers a multitude of sins, so there may be all sorts of problems with the current system that we won't see until the bear market comes. — Ron Chernow

Because of the love affair between the American public and the stock market, it is possible for entrepreneurs, technological visionaries and inventors of every sort to get financing. — Ron Chernow

greed can corrupt a state and that a public official who betrays his trust "ought to feel the utmost rigor of public resentment and be detested as a traitor of the worst and most dangerous kind. — Ron Chernow

As a bull market continues, almost anything you buy goes up. It makes you feel that investing in stocks is a very easy and safe and that you're a financial genius. — Ron Chernow

Hamilton, the human word machine, — Ron Chernow

That strategy of buy and hold, which is the sound and sensible one for the individual, can have very dangerous and perverse effects for the market as a whole. — Ron Chernow

Washington once advised his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends. — Ron Chernow

Once the brokerage house, rather than the bank, became the locus for American savings, that money would find its way into the stock market, because the broker was someone with a much higher tolerance for risk than the banker. — Ron Chernow

Many of these slaveholding populists were celebrated by posterity as tribunes of the common people. Meanwhile, the self-made Hamilton, a fervent abolitionist and a staunch believer in meritocracy, was villainized in American history textbooks as an apologist of privilege and wealth. — Ron Chernow

The mutual fund industry and small investors are very relentless and very unforgiving if people don't perform. — Ron Chernow

As often is the case with addictions, the fanciful notion of a gradual discontinuance only provided a comforting pretext for more sustained indulgence. — Ron Chernow

In December 1790, with other options foreclosed, Hamilton revived a proposal he had floated in his Report on Public Credit: an excise tax on whiskey and other domestic spirits. He knew the measure would be loathed in rural areas that thrived on moonshine, but he thought this might be more palatable to farmers than a land tax. Hamilton confessed to Washington an ulterior political motive for this liquor tax: he wanted to lay "hold of so valuable a resource of revenue before it was generally preoccupied by the state governments." As with assumption, he wanted to starve the states of revenue and shore up the federal government. Jefferson did not exaggerate Hamilton's canny capacity to clothe political objectives in technical garb. There were hidden agendas buried inside Hamilton's economic program, agendas that he tended to share with high-level colleagues but not always with the public. To — Ron Chernow

A crash really occurs when you suddenly have a violent downturn in the market that then heralds a long bull market. — Ron Chernow

The American public historically was really not part of the stock market. — Ron Chernow

After the death of John Laurens, Hamilton shut off some compartment of his emotions and never reopened it. — Ron Chernow

Washington departed the planet as admirably as he had inhabited it. He had long hated slavery, even though he had profited from it. Now, in his will, he stipulated that his slaves should be emancipated after Martha's death, and he set aside funds for slaves who would be either too young or too old to care for themselves. Of the nine American presidents who owned slaves - a list that includes his fellow Virginians Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe - only Washington set free all of his slaves. Washington — Ron Chernow

The British were unhinged by the colonists' unorthodox fighting style and shocking failure to abide by gentlemanly rules of engagement. One scandalized British soldier complained that the American riflemen 'conceal themselves behind trees etc. till an opportunity presents itself of taking a shot at our advance sentries, which done, they immediately retreat. What an unfair method of carrying on a war! — Ron Chernow

Again and again in his career, Hamilton committed the same political error: he never knew when to stop, and the resulting excesses led him into irremediable indiscretions. — Ron Chernow

Even amid a state of open warfare, these law-abiding men felt obligated to issue a formal document, giving a dispassionate list of their reasons for secession. — Ron Chernow

polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, — Ron Chernow

I think there's a tide that tends to carry historians back to the past. — Ron Chernow

Early on, New York already had a national and even international identity. — Ron Chernow

Mutual funds give people the sense that they're investing with the big boys and that they're really not at a disadvantage entering the stock market. — Ron Chernow

What I find very interesting about the mutual funds managers is that here are people who are the new masters of the universe. They're managing billions, yet they're subject to this quiet daily tyranny of numbers. — Ron Chernow

And shall we at last become the victims of our own abominable lust of gain? Forbid it, Heaven. Washington himself could be a hard driving businessman, yet he found the rapacity of many vendors unconscionable. As he told George Mason, he thought it the intent of the speculators, various tribes of money makers and stock jobbers of all denominations, to continue the war for their own private emolument, without considering that their avarice and thirst for gain must plunge everything in one common ruin. — Ron Chernow

(regarding Charles Lee) This eccentric and notably slovenly man was always trailed by his beloved dogs. "When I can be convinced that men are as worthy objects as dogs", he once explained, "I shall transfer my benevolence to them. — Ron Chernow

While other founding fathers were reared in tidy New England villages or cosseted on baronial Virginia estates, Hamilton grew up in a tropical hellhole of dissipated whites and fractious slaves, all framed by a backdrop of luxuriant natural beauty. On — Ron Chernow

Many mickles make a muckle. — Ron Chernow

basis. Because many Americans still bartered, Hamilton wanted to encourage the use of coins. As part of his campaign to foster a market economy, Hamilton suggested introducing a wide variety of coins, including gold and silver dollars, a ten-cent silver piece, and copper coins of a cent or half cent. He wasn't just thinking of rich people; small coins would benefit the poor "by enabling them to purchase in small portions and at a more reasonable rate the necessaries of which they stand in need." 42 To spur patriotism, he proposed that coins feature presidential heads or other emblematic designs and display great beauty and workmanship: "It is a just observation that 'The perfection of the coins is a great safeguard against counterfeits. — Ron Chernow

Hamilton's critics seriously underrated his superhuman stamina. He enjoyed beating his enemies at their own game, and the resolutions roused his fighting spirit. By February 19, in a staggering display of diligence, he delivered to the House several copious reports, garlanded with tables, lists, and statistics that gave a comprehensive overview of his work as treasury secretary. In the finale of one twenty-thousand-word report, Hamilton intimated that he had risked a physical breakdown to complete this heroic labor: It is certain that I have made every exertion in my power, at the hazard of my health, to comply with the requisitions of the House as early as possible. — Ron Chernow

The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets, because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before. — Ron Chernow

if Clinton was taken prisoner "it would be our misfortune, since the British government could not find another commander so incompetent to send in his place. — Ron Chernow

Rockefeller was sensitive about adults who behaved in a high-handed fashion toward him. Having assumed so much responsibility at home, he now thought of himself as a mature person. — Ron Chernow

A lot of the money in the stock market is really our national retirement plan, for better or worse. — Ron Chernow

Mutual funds have historically offered safety and diversification. And they spare you the responsibility of picking individual stocks. — Ron Chernow

He had learned a lesson about propaganda in politics and mused wearily that "no character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false." If a charge was made often enough, people assumed in the end "that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent."34 — Ron Chernow

Rejecting a simple grid for the capital as "tiresome and insipid", he argued that such a pattern made sense only for flat cities. Not only would diagonal streets provide "contrast and variety," but they would serve as express lanes, shortening the distance between places. Town squares would be situated where diagonal avenues crossed. — Ron Chernow

This falling-out was to be more than personal, for the rift between Hamilton and Madison precipitated the start of the two-party system in America. The funding debate shattered the short-lived political consensus that had ushered in the new government. For the next five years, the political spectrum in America was defined by whether people endorsed or opposed Alexander Hamilton's programs. — Ron Chernow

The history of Wall Street is inseparable from New York. — Ron Chernow

Hamilton's besetting fear was that American democracy would be spoiled by demagogues who would mouth populist shibboleths to conceal their despotism. — Ron Chernow

Rather than make peace with John Adams, he was ready, if necessary, to blow up the Federalist party and let Jefferson become president. The — Ron Chernow

After 1929, so many people had been traumatized by the stock market crash that there was a lost generation. — Ron Chernow

Since both Eliza and Angelica were pregnant, sister Peggy crept downstairs to retrieve the endangered child. The leader of the raiding party barred her way with a musket. "Wench, wench! Where is your master?" he demanded. "Gone to alarm the town," the coolheaded Peggy said.24 The intruder, fearing that Schuyler would return with troops, fled in alarm. — Ron Chernow

If Washington expected relief from Hamilton badgering him for an appointment, he soon learned otherwise. Hamilton was fully prepared to become a pest. — Ron Chernow

A romantic striving for an impossible ideal. — Ron Chernow

Light reading (by this, I mean books of little importance) may amuse for the moment, but leaves nothing solid behind. — Ron Chernow

The first great skeptic of American exceptionalism, he refused to believe that the country was exempt from the sober lessons of history. — Ron Chernow

He thought America's character would be defined by how it treated its vanquished enemies, and he wanted to graduate from bitter wartime grievances to the forgiving posture of peace. — Ron Chernow

Stock market corrections, although painful at the time, are actually a very healthy part of the whole mechanism, because there are always speculative excesses that develop, particularly during the long bull market. — Ron Chernow

In May, when a Senate committee took up the explosive issue of titles, Adams suggested that Washington be addressed as "His Highness, the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties."34 Adams provided fodder for contemporary wags and was promptly dubbed "His Rotundity" or the "Duke of Braintree. — Ron Chernow

Hamilton wanted to lead the electorate and provide expert opinion instead of consulting popular opinion. He took tough, uncompromising stands and gloried in abstruse ideas in a political culture that pined for greater simplicity. Alexander Hamilton triumphed as a doer and thinker, not as a leader of the average voter. He was simply too unashamedly brainy to appeal to the masses. Fisher Ames observed of Hamilton that the common people don't want leaders 'whom they see elevated by nature and education so far above their heads. — Ron Chernow

In his self-serving view of events, Lee believed that he had performed a prodigious feat, rescuing his overmatched army from danger and organizing an orderly retreat. "'The American troops would not stand the British bayonets," he insisted to Washington. "You damned poltroon," Washington rejoined, "you never tried them!" Always reluctant to resort to profanities, the chaste Washington cursed at Lee "till the leaves shook on the tree," recalled General Scott. "Charming! Delightful! Never have I enjoyed such swearing before or since. — Ron Chernow

You don't want too much fear in a market, because people will be blinded to some very good buying opportunities. You don't want too much complacency because people will be blinded to some risk. — Ron Chernow

One of the special characteristics of New York is that it is different from a London or a Paris because it's the financial capital, and the cultural capital, but not the political capital. — Ron Chernow

He had a great general's ability to focus on his goals and brush aside obstacles as petty distractions. "You can abuse me, you can strike me," Rockefeller said, "so long as you let me have my own way. — Ron Chernow

Unless you devote an enormous amount of time to anticipating the future, you won't have any future. — Ron Chernow

As a team, they were unbeatable and far more than the sum of their parts. — Ron Chernow

Rockefeller equated silence with strength: Weak men had loose tongues and blabbed to reporters, while prudent businessmen kept their own counsel. — Ron Chernow

Success comes from keeping the ears open and the mouth closed" and "A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds. — Ron Chernow

Perseverance in almost any plan is better than fickleness and fluctuation. (Alexander Hamilton, July 1792) — Ron Chernow

With a ready tongue and rapier wit, Hamilton could wound people more than he realized, and he was so nimble in debate that even bright people sometimes felt embarrassingly tongue-tied in his presence. — Ron Chernow

The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification. — Ron Chernow

When news of the crash came, probably a lot of people in small towns and farms across America felt a sense of grim satisfaction that the sinners had finally been punished for their wicked ways. — Ron Chernow

The founding fathers were not only brilliant, they were system builders and systematic thinkers. They came up with comprehensive plans and visions. — Ron Chernow

When the market is just going up, up, and up, we all tend to be blind to the holes in the market. They're all papered over by the rise. — Ron Chernow

By the late 1980s people realized that houses did not always appreciate and that they could fluctuate like any other market commodity. — Ron Chernow

His military triumphs had been neither frequent nor epic in scale. He had lost more battles than he had won, had botched several through strategic blunders, and had won at Yorktown only with the indispensable aid of the French Army and fleet. But he was a different kind of general fighting a different kind of war, and his military prowess cannot be judged by the usual scorecard of battles won and lost. His fortitude in keeping the impoverished Continental Army intact was a major historic accomplishment. It always stood on the brink of dissolution, and Washington was the one figure who kept it together, the spiritual and managerial genius of the whole enterprise: he had been resilient in the face of every setback, courageous in the face of every danger. He was that rare general who was great between battles and not just during them. — Ron Chernow

There were two qualities about the mutual funds of the 1920s that made them extremely speculative. One was that they were heavily leveraged. Two, mutual funds were allowed to invest in other mutual funds. — Ron Chernow

One of the very nice things about investing in the stock market is that you learn about all different aspects of the economy. It's your window into a very large world. — Ron Chernow

I'm a biographer; I can live with a little hyperbole. — Ron Chernow