My Dear Hamilton Quotes

“We think that love gives us more than a glimpse into one another’s souls. But the idea that human beings are knowable is one of the many lies we tell in the service of love. That’s what I learned reading my sister’s letters.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“Though I fear that he possessed a prescience which too few of our contemporaries share.” “Oh?” I ask, wishing to make him elaborate. And he does, intoning Alexander’s words, “‘If these states should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies, the subdivisions into which they might be thrown—” “—would have frequent and violent contest with each other,” I finish, for I know the words by heart. “Federalist Number Six.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“the Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site in Albany, Ian Mumpton and Danielle Funiciello, who provided copies of letters and answered a thousand questions, large and small. Though any errors you may find in this manuscript are ours alone. Thanks also go to the Daughters of the American Revolution and their magazine for providing research material of interest for subjects like Sinterklaas and Dutch culture in Eliza’s time. Lars Hedbor for helping to nitpick the historical accuracy of everything from coffee to French uniforms. Alison Morton and Annalori Ferrell for”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“We think that love gives us more than a glimpse into one another’s souls. But the idea that human beings are knowable is one of the many lies we tell in the service of love. That’s what I learned reading my sister’s letters.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“No man could have been devoted to and besotted by me, and taken my sister as a mistress. Except perhaps for one man, said that accursed inner voice that Lafayette had summoned. Needy, insecure Alexander Hamilton, who could never forgo an impulse or resist the affections he’d been starved of as a child.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“He is inescapable in even the smallest things. I cannot buy a pouch of seeds for this garden without money from the mint that he established. I cannot pass a newsboy on my walks through the city without seeing the paper he founded or without reflecting upon the freedoms for the press he helped guarantee. I cannot cast my gaze at the busy ships in the harbor”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“December 1799 New York City George Washington’s passing shook the very foundations of the country. Few men on earth had done more to earn eternal rest than the former president, but we were left like children frightened to face a world without him. Even Alexander, though he was loath to admit it.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“The advantage of the Reynolds scandal was that I no longer had anything to hide. I found satisfaction in my work—and in Alexander’s. For on the Fourth of July, we’d toasted the state legislature’s passage of a law establishing the gradual abolition of slavery.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“Autumn 1799”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“I could neither leave my husband nor love him without offending somebody. As the wronged wife, there was nothing whatsoever I could now do that might be counted appropriate, except, perhaps, to lay down and die of shame.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“My husband is not capable of corruption.” Monroe stared as if he couldn’t quite believe a woman would challenge him this way. “I presume you didn’t know he was capable of adultery, either. I wish the public might behold in Hamilton that immaculate purity to which he pretends. But, my lady, we both know he pretends. And even if I were tempted by your friendship to say otherwise, I have other friends to whom I am obligated.” “Other friends? Mr. Jefferson, I presume.” He didn’t answer, and he didn’t have to. For partisan politics had become so strident and divisive that even someone as honorable as James Monroe refused to do what was right because it would cost him politically. He didn’t want to offend Jefferson. He couldn’t afford to offend Jefferson.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“president seemed to stem the tide of discontent. The culprit had never been caught, but the stench of the ashes remained.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“A wreath of smoky haze had enveloped the city for months, the remainder of a series of devastating fires that had been set in protest of the election of John Adams to the presidency. Not even the fact that Jefferson, having received the second most number of votes in the election, was now vice”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“I think you’ve already accomplished everything you set out to do.” It was not flattery. He’d fought and won a war and built a federal government. He’d created a coast guard, a national bank, and invented a scheme of taxation that held the states together. He’d founded a political party, smashed a rebellion, and put in motion a financial system that was providing prosperity for nearly everyone. In short, Alexander Hamilton was a greater man than the country deserved, and”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“Washington, the father of the country. Adams, the mastermind of independence. Jefferson, the voice of the revolution. Madison, the father of the Constitution. And Monroe, the last of the founders. Or so they say. But if Monroe must be counted as the last, then by my reasoning, my husband was the first. For not one of these men would have ever become president without Alexander Hamilton, the architect of our very government.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“laurels.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“And he couldn’t win an argument if I didn’t start one.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“As if to remind himself of the stern lesson of his childhood: he ought never trust or depend upon anyone.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“Washington, the father of the country. Adams, the mastermind of independence. Jefferson, the voice of the revolution. Madison, the father of the Constitution. And Monroe, the last of the founders.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“like love, survival is a choice to be made anew every morning, and sometimes one must pretend at being healed just to get through the day.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“On and on, working late hours between courtroom trials and congressional committee meetings, and nearly killing themselves [Alexander Hamilton and James Madison] doing it, they wrote the most enduring explanation of government ever put to paper before or since.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“If mankind were to agree to no institution of government until every part of it was perfect, society would become a scene of anarchy and the world a desert." Alexander Hamilton”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“And since I couldn’t fight in this war, I contributed the way women could. I sewed. Uniforms, socks, flesh. “If”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“Federalist Number Forty-One.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“But Monroe has already invaded my parlor so I must deal with him. And I must deal with him myself. To do otherwise would be to discount a lifetime of lessons from my father, a general who taught me that when faced with the specter of defeat, one must meet it swiftly and with as much dignity as possible.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“seeing the trade he assured, or the coast guard that he founded, or the industry and opportunities he provided for the people who now flock to our shores in search of freedom and a better future. In short, there is not a breath in any American’s life that is not shaped in some way by Alexander Hamilton. Certainly not a breath in mine. His memory, which I must honor for the sake of our children if nothing else, is impossible for me to escape. Though I confess I have tried.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“I never did think the truth was a crime. I’m glad the day has come in which it is to be decided. For my soul has ever abhorred the thought that a free man dare not speak the truth.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“Properly estimate the immense value of your National Union to your happiness and to your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing any who suggest it can be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon every attempt to alienate any portion of the country from the rest.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“No wonder marriage required a vow before God and witnesses. It was no easy thing. And yet, the struggles somehow made me cherish it more. Made me cherish him more.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton

“Farewell Address, calling out over the crowd: “‘Properly estimate the immense value of your National Union to your happiness and to your political safety and prosperity, watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing any who suggest it can be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon every attempt to alienate any portion of the country from the rest.”
― Stephanie Dray, My Dear Hamilton