Chernow Ron 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

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

Hamilton saw America's essential nature being forged in the throes of battle, and that made honest action imperative. — 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

We really haven't had very much experience with people funding their retirement out of the stock market, and we don't know, frankly, how it would work under every scenario. — 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

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 fact, no immigrant in American history has ever made a larger contribution than Alexander 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

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

For the remainder of the gubernatorial campaign, Hamilton issued open letters to the electorate, and at Clinton campaign rallies his essays were hurled under the table as marks of contempt. In shaping his final appeal to voters, Hamilton said that Clinton's most effective tactic was to single out the rich for abuse, and he warned that republicans scapegoated the rich to their detriment: "There is no stronger sign of combinations unfriendly to the general good than when the partisans of those in power raise an indiscriminate cry against men of property."26 — 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

explaining that he did so "from a desire of testifying — 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

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

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

There is no country in the world where it's as easy to find venture capital in the stock market as the United States. — 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

1755, Knox decided to propagate the gospel and was sent — 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

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

Americans often wonder how this moment could have spawned such extraordinary men as Hamilton and Madison. Part of the answer is that the Revolution produced an insatiable need for thinkers who could generate ideas and wordsmiths who could lucidly expound them. The immediate utility of ideas was an incalculable tonic for the founding generation. The fate of the democratic experiment depended upon political intellectuals who might have been marginalized at other periods. — Ron Chernow

Hamilton had one of those extraordinary 18th-century minds that touched on virtually every major topic of the day. — 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

Washington had several surrogate sons during the Revolution, most notably the marquis de Lafayette, and he often referred to Hamilton as my boy. — Ron Chernow

The law is whatever is successfully argued and plausibly maintained, — 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

In the 1920s you could buy stocks on margin. You could put 10 percent down and borrow the rest against your stocks. — 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

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

Since critics found it hard to defeat him on intellectual grounds, they stooped to personal attacks. — 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

After being Washington's aide for four years and becoming the hero of Yorktown, Hamilton was viewed with a great deal of suspicion because of his association with Tories. — Ron Chernow

Mutual fund managers are trapped in this rather deadly vicious circle: the more successful they are, the more money flows into their mutual fund. Then, it is more difficult for them to beat the market averages or even to match their own past performance. — 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

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

The securities laws of the 1930s were so important because it forced companies to file registration statements and issue prospectuses, and it remedied the imbalance of information. — Ron Chernow

Writing about dead white males seems to be out of favor among academics. — 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

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

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

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

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

I think one of the important things that's happened in the course of the century is that life expectancy has doubled. — 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm dubious about having Social Security put into the stock market. I think that we have gotten very far away from the idea that there's something sacrosanct about retirement investments. — 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

His account books reflect a concern with fashion, as shown by periodic visits to a French tailor, and his sartorial elegance is confirmed in portraits. In one painting, he wears a double-breasted coat with brass buttons and gilt-edged lapels, his neck swathed delicately in a ruffled lace jabot. — Ron Chernow

I think that we Americans, at least in the Southern col[onie]s, cannot contend with a good grace for liberty until we shall have enfranchised our slaves, Laurens told a friend right before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.64 — 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

Another female observer found Madison entertaining in private but "mute, cold, and repulsive" in company. — Ron Chernow

I have developed a very strong partiality for the dead: they don't talk back, they don't sue, and they don't have angry relatives. — Ron Chernow

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

Washington quibbled with Hamilton on one or two points but otherwise stood in perfect agreement. His letter to Hamilton again corroborates what the Jeffersonians found difficult to credit: that Washington never shied away from differing with the redoubtable Hamilton but agreed with him on the vast majority of issues. — Ron Chernow

The public has lost faith in the ability of Social Security and Medicare to provide for old age. They've lost faith in the banking system and in conventional medical insurance. — Ron Chernow

Cornwallis had grown so desperate that he infected blacks with smallpox and forced them to wander toward enemy lines in an attempt to sicken the opposing forces. — Ron Chernow

In constructing the Coast Guard, Hamilton insisted on rigorous professionalism and irreproachable conduct. He knew that if revenue-cutter captains searched vessels in an overbearing fashion, this high-handed behavior might sap public support, so he urged firmness tempered with restraint. He reminded skippers to "always keep in mind that their countrymen are free men and as such are impatient of everything that bears the least mark of a domineering spirit. [You] will therefore refrain . . . from whatever has the semblance of haughtiness, rudeness, or insult." 34 So masterly was Hamilton's directive about boarding foreign vessels that it was still being applied during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Hamilton — Ron Chernow

Ron told Pippa that during the six years he had spent on the book, Valerie Chernow had developed a powerful identification with Hamilton's wife. "She used to say, 'Eliza is like me: She's good, she's true, she's loyal, she's not ambitious.' There was a purity and a goodness about the character, and that was like Valerie," he says. In 2006, after 27 years of marriage, Valerie passed away. For her gravestone, Ron chose a line from the letter that Hamilton wrote to Eliza on the night before the duel: "Best of wives and best of women. — Lin-Manuel Miranda