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.”

“Politics boils down to the stories we tell ourselves. And unfortunately, we tell ourselves different stories.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I was quite bowled over by Isabel Wilkerson's masterly saga, 'The Warmth of Other Suns.'”

“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.”

“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.”

“The mutual fund industry and small investors are very relentless and very unforgiving if people don't perform.”

“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.”

“The thing with all the Founding Fathers, one of the most common words they used was 'posterity.' They were constantly referring to posterity.”

“I think there's a tide that tends to carry historians back to the past.”

“[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.)”

“I'm disturbed by the words missing from the Trump campaign: Liberty, justice, freedom, and tolerance.”

“I just have been so surprised and delighted with what has happened with 'Hamilton.' It really has been one of the most enchanting experiences of my life.”

“Ultimately, the appraisal of Grant's presidency rests upon posterity's view of Reconstruction.”

“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.”

“I always sympathize with people who complain about the length of my books. It would take me a year to get through one of them.”

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

“I'm sure there are many more people who can identify with failure and hardship in life than with the success of an Alexander Hamilton or a John D. Rockefeller.”