Top 280 Ron Chernow Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 6 of 6

251. “Of the two policies that Hamilton wished to promote – the federal assumption of state debt and the selection of New York as the capital – assumption was incomparably more important to him. It was the most effective and irrevocable way to yoke the states together into a permanent union.”

— Ron Chernow

252. “It is the child of avarice, the brother of inequity, and father of mischief. It has been the ruin of many worthy families, the loss of many a man’s honor, and the cause of suicide. To all those who enter the list, it is equally fascinating. The successful gamester pushes his good fortune till it is overtaken by a reverse. The losing gamester, in hopes of retrieving past misfortunes, goes on from bad to worse.”37 Washington.”

— Ron Chernow

253. “The strident tone of “The Stand” reflects the polarization that had gripped America over the French crisis. Feelings ran so high that Jefferson told one correspondent, “Men who have been intimate all their lives cross the street to avoid meeting and turn their heads another way, lest they should be obliged to touch hats.”

— Ron Chernow

254. “Everything was perfectly sorted, classified, and slotted in his compartmentalized mind and books. Washington’s contemporaries recognized that this compulsive note taking, this itch to record his every action, went to the very essence of this well-regulated man.”

— Ron Chernow

255. “Grant worded his message to remove any suspicion that he spoke for a particular religious denomination. Also buried in his statement was a courageous, farsighted plea for free, universal education for black children. The laconic Grant’s crusade for public education was a unique event in his presidency, the result of a riveting speech that had forced an issue on the national consciousness through powerful oratory.”

— Ron Chernow

256. “Early on, New York already had a national and even international identity.”

— Ron Chernow

257. “In February 1878, Grant braved rain, wind, and snow to become the first American president to visit Jerusalem. He met with a delegation of American Jews who distributed relief to their suffering brethren in the Holy Land and he promised to carry their message to Jewish leaders at home. As they entered religious sites, Julia was susceptible to powerful emotions, her active imagination a perfect foil for her husband’s skeptical, deadpan humor.”

— Ron Chernow

258. “Man proposes and God disposes.”

— Ron Chernow

259. “Nothing alarmed the white South more than black power at the polls, which was why most terror was directed there.”

— Ron Chernow

260. “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

261. “Robert Troup said that Hamilton rejected fees if they were larger than he thought warranted and generally favored arbitration or amicable settlements in lieu of lawsuits.”

— Ron Chernow

262. “Clinton epitomized the flaws of the old confederation, and he denounced “the pernicious intrigues of a man high in office to preserve power and emolument to himself at the expense of the union, the peace, and the happiness of America.”

— Ron Chernow

263. “The Federalist has been extolled as both a literary and political masterpiece. Theodore Roosevelt commented “that it is on the whole the greatest book” dealing with practical politics.”

— Ron Chernow

264. “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

265. “On September 9 the tour touched its nadir in St. Louis when Johnson, in another intemperate outburst, had the gall to blame Congress for the New Orleans riot: “Every drop of blood that was shed is upon their skirts, and they are responsible for it.”67 Turning himself into a martyr, he proclaimed, “I have been traduced. I have been slandered. I have been maligned.”

— Ron Chernow

266. “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

267. “Everyone found Grant modest and retiring, an altogether likable fellow. “His only dissipation was in owning a fast horse,” said a regimental colleague. “He always liked to have a fine nag, and he paid high prices to get one.”21 Grant enjoyed playing chess and checkers, attending parties with Julia, and worshipping with her at the Methodist church.”

— Ron Chernow

268. “What pretty much guaranteed that Johnson would side with white supremacists was his benighted view of black people. No American president has ever held such openly racist views. “This is a country for white men,” he declared unashamedly, “and by God, as long as I am President, it shall be a government for white men.”

— Ron Chernow

269. “The American public historically was really not part of the stock market.”

— Ron Chernow

270. “I’m a biographer; I can live with a little hyperbole.”

— Ron Chernow

271. “Lafayette showed a courtier’s love of compliments, was a master of flattery, and liked to hug people in the French manner. Perhaps Washington doted on the young man because he dared to express emotions that he himself stifled, thawing his frosty reserve and opening an outlet for his suppressed emotions.”

— Ron Chernow

272. “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

273. “The president was running out of room to maneuver as the country backed away from further federal interference in the South. The outcry over Louisiana began to ring down the final curtain on Reconstruction. Southern whites increasingly substituted the word “Redemption” – a restoration of white rule – for the hated term “Reconstruction.”

— Ron Chernow

274. “After Seabury rebutted “A Full Vindication,” Hamilton struck back with “The Farmer Refuted,” an eighty-page tour de force that Rivington brought out on February 23, 1775.”

— Ron Chernow

275. “He knew the western country from surveying; had the robust constitution to survive the winter woods; was mostly unflappable; had a mature appearance and sound judgment; and was a model youth, with no tincture of rowdiness in his nature. In certain ways, he was a very old young man.”

— Ron Chernow

276. “Mills lashed out at Barbot as “an impertinent puppy” – the sort of fighting words that prompted duels.35.”

— Ron Chernow

277. “Grant explained to Porter his aversion to profanities, saying “swearing helps to rouse a man’s anger; and when a man flies into a passion his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him.”50.”

— Ron Chernow

278. “A whirlwind of energy, Madison would seem omnipresent in the early days of Washington’s administration. He drafted not only the inaugural address but also the official response by Congress and then Washington’s response to Congress, completing the circle.”

— Ron Chernow

279. “My family is American,” Ulysses later declared proudly, “and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral.”

— Ron Chernow

280. “Americans today know little about the terrorism that engulfed the South during Grant’s presidency. It has been suppressed by a strange national amnesia. The Klan’s ruthless reign is a dark, buried chapter in American history. The Civil War is far better known than its brutal aftermath.”

— Ron Chernow

281. “It never seemed to dawn on her to encourage her children to have a good time.”

— Ron Chernow

282. “Both Grant and Sherman were damaged souls who would redeem tarnished reputations in the brutal crucible of war.”

— Ron Chernow

283. “Taking for granted the growth of his empire, he hired talented people as found, not as needed.”

— Ron Chernow

284. “I am so tired. It is so long. I want to see Hamilton.”

— Ron Chernow

285. “Even as a raw country boy, he allowed himself no oath stronger than “Thunder and Lightning.”

— Ron Chernow

286. “Frederick Douglass paired Grant with Lincoln as the two people who had done most to secure African American advances:.”

— Ron Chernow

287. “Like her youngest son, Julia administered stern lectures on republican virtue. Before supper, two noblewomen stopped by to school her in palace etiquette. “Mrs. Grant,” one said, “I hope you will not feel fatigued. Our Queen always receives standing.” Julia replied breezily, “Oh, I am sure I will not feel the fatigue. You must remember I too have received for the last eight years and always standing.”32 Julia was at pains to remind the two women that they were dealing with American royalty. The.”

— Ron Chernow

288. “They promulgated a view of the Civil War as a righteous cause that had nothing to do with slavery but only states’ rights – to which an incredulous James Longstreet once replied, “I never heard of any other cause of the quarrel than slavery.”

— Ron Chernow

289. “He has no desire to rise by the fall of others; no glorying over another’s abasement;.”

— Ron Chernow

290. “Hamilton alone seemed resigned as the end neared. At one point, speaking of politics, he said, “If they break this union, they will break my heart.”69 He could have left no more fitting political epitaph.”

— Ron Chernow

291. “Hamilton’s life was so tumultuous that only an audacious novelist could have dreamed it up.”

— Ron Chernow

292. “Frederick Douglass, who had entertained hopes for the Haitian post, graciously conceded defeat. “Your appointment,” he told Bassett, “is a grand achievement for yourself and for our whole people.”

— Ron Chernow

293. “By the end of four years at West Point, he had capitulated to the tyranny of the clerical error and adopted Ulysses S. Grant as his new moniker for life.”

— Ron Chernow

294. “He dabbled in watercolors, attended the theater, and quoted liberally from Shakespeare and Dickens.”

— Ron Chernow

295. “Many of the real scenes in early California life exceed in strangeness and interest any of the mere products of the brain of the novelist,” he declared.”

— Ron Chernow

296. “Despite Grant’s best efforts at Appomattox, the breach of the Civil War never healed but became deeply embedded in American political culture.”

— Ron Chernow

297. “Grant had overwhelmingly won the electoral vote, and had garnered the largest popular majority of the century, nearly 56 percent of the vote, the biggest percentage between Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt.”

— Ron Chernow

298. “He became known for breaking in wild horses for local farmers, a sight that drew admiring spectators to the village square. He tamed even the most refractory horses through a fine sensitivity to their nature rather than by his physical prowess. “If people knew how much more they could get out of a horse by gentleness than by harshness,” Grant once observed, “they would save a great deal of trouble both to the horse and the man.”

— Ron Chernow

299. “Confederate forces were being whittled down and could not be replaced by the South’s smaller population.”

— Ron Chernow