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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 55bbeab | dishclout | Ron Chernow | ||
| 9d03885 | manner. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 6edd2d5 | Gordian knot | Ron Chernow | ||
| 22451f4 | government. | Ron Chernow | ||
| a428f65 | Both Jefferson and Adams detested people who earned a living shuffling financial paper, and when Adams launched a bitter tirade in later years against the iniquitous banking system, Jefferson agreed that the business was "an infinity of successive felonious larcenies." 9 That banks could serve any economic purpose--that they could generate prosperity that might enrich the few but also lubricate the wheels of commerce--seemed alien to both m.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 29d7619 | Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen these two boys between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, sixteen, and Alexander, fourteen, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless. | Ron Chernow | ||
| ff8629a | Alexander Hamilton may have been musing upon his mother's marriage to Lavien when he later observed, 'Tis a very good thing when their stars unite two people who are fit for each other, who have souls capable of relishing the sweets of friendship and sensibilities...But it's a dog of [a] life when two dissonant tempers meet. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 03919c5 | Hamilton and his men ran so fast that they almost overtook the sappers, who were snapping off the edges of the sharpened tree branches and opening a breach through which the infantry rushed. Hamilton, hopping on the shoulder of a kneeling soldier, sprang onto the enemy parapet and summoned his men to follow. Their password was "Rochambeau"--"a good one," said one American, because it "sounds like 'Rush-on-boys' when pronounced quick." 36 On.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| eb4c3a4 | Mills lashed out at Barbot as "an impertinent puppy"--the sort of fighting words that prompted duels.35" | Ron Chernow | ||
| cc65411 | In his final months, Grant showed exceptional kindness to Terrell, furnishing him with a glowing recommendation letter for use after his death so he could find employment as a War Department messenger. Terrell's son Robert had just graduated cum laude from Harvard. While he was there, Grant had provided him with a beautiful letter to obtain summer work in the Boston Custom House: "My special interest in him is from the fact that his father-.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| af0f5b3 | Hamilton said, he would follow the classic path of a populist demagogue: "I would mount the hobbyhorse of popularity, I would cry out usurpation, danger" | Ron Chernow | ||
| 52cbdb4 | At one point, Bill suggested that if John didn't find work he might have to return to the country; the thought of such dependence upon his father made "a cold chill" run down his spine, Rockefeller later said.27 Because he approached his job hunt devoid of any doubt or self-pity, he could stare down all discouragement. "I was working every day at my business--the business of looking for work. I put in my full time at this every day." | Ron Chernow | ||
| a4525f4 | Its couplets included these lines: "Before no mortal ever knew / A love like mine so tender, true...No joy unmixed my bosom warms / But when my angel's in my arms." -- | Ron Chernow | ||
| 82b5925 | religions. | Ron Chernow | ||
| c2565cc | To believe America able to withstand England is a dreadful infatuation. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 864dade | Perhaps most problematic was the controversial bargain that Alexander Hamilton had struck with the Constitution, dedicating his life to what he deemed a flawed document. | Ron Chernow | ||
| b088301 | panegyric | Ron Chernow | ||
| bb8ef99 | bibulous, | Ron Chernow | ||
| 281cc67 | parvenu | Ron Chernow | ||
| 2a57fd3 | taciturnity. | Ron Chernow | ||
| cbc173e | At a time of tremendous ideological cleavages, | Ron Chernow | ||
| baadcd6 | Hamilton extra | Ron Chernow | ||
| acdb249 | could see masts of submerged ships poking up from the water--and seeded the East River with spiked obstacles to thwart vessels. | Ron Chernow | ||
| a2d201f | For part of his Parisian stay, Jefferson was joined by his two daughters. The younger one, Polly, arrived in 1787 in the company of his light-skinned fourteen-year-old slave, Sally Hemings, who was called "Dashing Sally" at Monticello and was later described by another slave as "mighty near white" and "very handsome" with "long straight hair down her back."19 Jefferson had inherited the Hemings family via his wife, and it is now presumed th.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 07a3634 | Hamilton had analyzed his own rejection thus: "I am a stranger in this country. I have no property here, no connections. If I have talents and integrity...these are justly deemed very spurious titles in these enlightened days."83" | Ron Chernow | ||
| 26bfa67 | If men were angels, no government would be necessary. | Ron Chernow | ||
| e9cff9e | poltroon, | Ron Chernow | ||
| 6a57f00 | 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 | ||
| cc47c71 | As in the American south, an exaggerated sense of romantic honor may have been an unconscious way for slaveholders to flaunt their moral superiority, purge pent-up guilt, and cloak the brutish nature of their trade. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 28b66c0 | a face so broad and ruddy that he was dubbed "Bacon Face." | Ron Chernow | ||
| a4d2668 | To his astonishment, the officers agreed with Lee's views and in a manner, scoffed Hamilton, that "would have done honor to the most honorable society of midwives."27 Washington preferred to operate by consensus," | Ron Chernow | ||
| ea14e15 | At a time when moguls vied to impress people with their possessions, Rockefeller preferred comfort to refinement. His house was bare of hunting trophies, shelves of richly bound but unread books, or other signs of conspicuous consumption. Rockefeller molded his house for his own use, not to awe strangers. As he wrote of the Forest Hill fireplaces in 1877: "I have seen a good many fireplaces here [and] don't think the character of our rooms .. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 8435be3 | Unfortunately, Greene's personal finances were in no less disorderly a state than those of the country at large: he had accumulated such heavy debts guaranteeing contracts for the southern army that it gave him "much pain and preyed heavily upon my spirits."38 He also revealed to Washington in August 1784 that for two months he had experienced a "dangerous and disagree[able] pain" in his chest, which sounds like heart disease.39 In June 178.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 1fb2d15 | People tended either to embrace Hamilton or to abhor him; | Ron Chernow | ||
| 50a633c | She liked to quote the maxim, "To be a good wife and mother is the highest and hardest privilege of woman."27" | Ron Chernow | ||
| 0b6d43f | douceur | Ron Chernow | ||
| 8fc47c7 | Packard and Giles entreated Rockefeller for a donation to secure the school on a permanent footing: "Give it a name; let it if you please be called Rockefeller College, or if you prefer let it take your good wife's Maiden name or any other which suits you."68 Although Rockefeller retired the $5,000 debt, he humbly declined to use his own name. Instead, in a fitting tribute to his in-laws, he opted for the Spelman name, thus giving birth to .. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 252f7c8 | 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 | ||
| a9ca17c | scheme which requires such a sacrifice. But | Ron Chernow | ||
| a1a6c94 | For this reason, I have stressed his evangelical Baptism as the passkey that unlocks many mysteries of his life. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 7af0618 | Another traveling companion remembered the Rockefellers sitting at a private dining room in a Roman hotel as the paterfamilias dissected the weekly bill, trying to ascertain whether they had really consumed two whole chickens, as these slippery foreigners alleged: Mr. Rockefeller listened for a while to the discussion, and then said quietly: "I can settle that very easily. John, did you have a chicken leg?" "Yes." "Alta, did you have a chic.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 9b1f233 | On May 19, Representative Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, Hamilton's old patron from Elizabethtown, proposed that Congress establish a department of finance. From the clamor that arose over what would become the Treasury Department, it was clear this would be the real flash point of controversy in the new government, the place where critics feared that European-style despotism could take root. Legislators recalled that British tax abuses had .. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 84599c7 | The Philadelphia mutiny had major repercussions in American history, for it gave rise to the notion that the national capital should be housed in a special federal district where it would never stand at the mercy of state governments. For Hamilton, the episode only heightened his dismay over the Confederation Congress and the folly of relying on state militias. On the other hand, he thought Congress had been unfairly blamed for failing to f.. | Ron Chernow | ||
| 6b34451 | The issue is much more complicated than that, but there's no doubt that Rockefeller's achievement arose from the often tense interplay between the two opposing, deeply ingrained tendencies of his nature--his father's daring and his mother's prudence--yoked together under great pressure. | Ron Chernow |