{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton/the-federalist-papers/an-avaricious-man", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton/the-federalist-papers/an-avaricious-man.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton/the-federalist-papers/an-avaricious-man.md", "id": "6d44f141-6a1f-45c1-90b9-66c1cd7e705c", "slug": "an-avaricious-man", "text": "An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the State to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue, which would make it wise in a Nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a Magistrate created and circumstanced as would be a President of the United States.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Alexander Hamilton", "slug": "alexander-hamilton", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton" }, "book": { "title": "The Federalist Papers", "slug": "the-federalist-papers", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton/the-federalist-papers" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "ambition", "slug": "ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition" }, { "name": "greed", "slug": "greed", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/greed" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#The_Federalist_Papers_(1787%E2%80%931788)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:06", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "ffb8832a-8fa7-4e2c-8f79-e275904fa06b", "slug": "when-the-sword", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton/the-federalist-papers/when-the-sword", "text": "When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation. The suggestions of wounded pride, the instigations of irritated resentment, would be apt to carry the States against which the arms of the Union were exerted, to any extremes necessary to avenge the affront or to avoid the disgrace of submission. The first war of this kind would probably terminate in a dissolution of the Union.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "war", "slug": "war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war" }, { "name": "passion", "slug": "passion", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/passion" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#The_Federalist_Papers_(1787%E2%80%931788)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:06" }, { "id": "ea9b5d5d-7ec0-4fbf-849b-437c86fd021e", "slug": "let-us-recollect", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton/the-federalist-papers/let-us-recollect", "text": "Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "war", "slug": "war", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/war" }, { "name": "ambition", "slug": "ambition", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/ambition" }, { "name": "peace", "slug": "peace", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/peace" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#The_Federalist_Papers_(1787%E2%80%931788)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:06" }, { "id": "d9f2e91c-4782-4eae-8d39-1b7e3200f686", "slug": "there-are-men", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/alexander-hamilton/the-federalist-papers/there-are-men", "text": "There are men who could neither be distressed nor won into a sacrifice of their duty; but this stern virtue is the growth of few soils; and in the main it will be found that a power over a man's support is a power over his will. If it were necessary to confirm so plain a truth by facts, examples would not be wanting, even in this country, of the intimidation or seduction of the Executive by the terrors or allurements of the pecuniary arrangements of the legislative body.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "power", "slug": "power", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/power" }, { "name": "money", "slug": "money", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton#The_Federalist_Papers_(1787%E2%80%931788)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:50:06" } ] }