“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct.”

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Government implies the power of making laws. It is essential to the idea of a law, that it be attended with a sanction; or, in other words, a penalty or punishment for disobedience.

The honor of a nation is its life.

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates.

We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided.

I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.

There are approximately 1,010,300 words in the English language, but I could never string enough words together to properly express how much I want to hit you with a chair. (Alexander Hamilton, to Thomas Jefferson)

Hard words are very rarely useful. Real firmness is good for every thing. Strut is good for nothing.

A strong body makes the mind strong, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind.

If we must have an enemy at the head of government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom we are not responsible.

The rights of neutrality will only be respected, when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.

Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.

Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burthens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression!

Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Cultivate your curves – they may be dangerous but they won’t be avoided.

Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.

Women are like roads. The more curves they have, the more dangerous they are.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

There is always danger for those who are afraid.

Musical innovation is full of danger to the State, for when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change with them.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.