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Ron Chernow

Ron Chernow Quotes

Writer

Ron Chernow is an American author renowned for his biographical works. His books delve into the lives and achievements of historical figures, enjoying great popularity among readers. His representative works include 'Alexander Hamilton' and 'Washington: A Life'.

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Famous Ron Chernow Quotes

“Again and again in his career, Hamilton committed the same political error: he never knew when to stop, and the resulting excesses led him into irremediable indiscretions.”

Book:Alexander Hamilton

Source: Alexander Hamilton

“[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.)”

Book:Alexander Hamilton

Source: Alexander Hamilton

“The British were unhinged by the colonists' unorthodox fighting style and shocking failure to abide by gentlemanly rules of engagement. One scandalized British soldier complained that the American riflemen 'conceal themselves behind trees etc. till an opportunity presents itself of taking a shot at our advance sentries, which done, they immediately retreat. What an unfair method of carrying on a war!”

War Humor Funny British Revolutionary War

Book:Alexander Hamilton

Source: Alexander Hamilton

“Her willpower and spunk surprised people.”

Book:Alexander Hamilton

Source: Alexander Hamilton

“The Negro will disappear from the field of national politics...Henceforth the nation, as a nation, will have nothing more to do with him." (The Nation, progressive periodical of our day, published demeaning, racist opinions of Black Americans during Reconstruction (ie pg. 854 softcover)”

Racism In America Racism Quotes Progressive Politics The Nation

Book:Grant

Source: Grant

“That this abominable childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant human-being - that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen - seems little short of miraculous.”

Legacy Potential Founding Father Wait For It Alexander Hamilton Biography

Book:Alexander Hamilton

Source: Alexander Hamilton

“One of the special characteristics of New York is that it is different from a London or a Paris because it's the financial capital, and the cultural capital, but not the political capital.”

Different Political Special New York Financial London Paris Characteristics

Author:Ron Chernow

“The richly cadenced prose is hypnotic, the research prodigious, the analysis acute, the mood spellbinding, and the cast of characters mythic in scale. I cannot conceive of a better book about Capitol Hill. An unforgettable, epic achievement in the art of biography.”

Art Book Character Achievement Research Casts Mood Scales Hills Analysis Prose Epic Biographies Capitol Unforgettable Prodigious Hypnotic Capitol Hill

Author:Ron Chernow

“A romantic striving for an impossible ideal.”

Impossible Ideals Strive

Author:Ron Chernow

“Unless you devote an enormous amount of time to anticipating the future, you won't have any future.”

Amount Enormous Anticipating The Future

Author:Ron Chernow

“Once the brokerage house, rather than the bank, became the locus for American savings, that money would find its way into the stock market, because the broker was someone with a much higher tolerance for risk than the banker.”

Way House Risk Higher Tolerance Saving Savings Bankers Brokers

Author:Ron Chernow

“What I find very interesting about the mutual funds managers is that here are people who are the new masters of the universe. They're managing billions, yet they're subject to this quiet daily tyranny of numbers.”

People Universe Interesting Numbers Subjects Masters Quiet Billions Tyranny Managers Fund Mutual Very Interesting Mutual Fund

Author:Ron Chernow

“I have developed a very strong partiality for the dead: they don't talk back, they don't sue, and they don't have angry relatives.”

Strong Angry Relative Very Strong Partiality

Author:Ron Chernow

“The founding fathers were not only brilliant, they were system builders and systematic thinkers. They came up with comprehensive plans and visions.”

Father Vision Plans Brilliant Thinker Founding Comprehensive Systematic Builder Brilliant Ideas

Author:Ron Chernow

“As a bull market continues, almost anything you buy goes up. It makes you feel that investing in stocks is a very easy and safe and that you're a financial genius.”

Feels Easy Genius Safe Investing Financial Bulls Bull Markets

Author:Ron Chernow

“Mutual funds have historically offered safety and diversification. And they spare you the responsibility of picking individual stocks.”

Individual Responsibility Safety Fund Mutual Spares Diversification Mutual Fund

Author:Ron Chernow

“Mutual funds give people the sense that they're investing with the big boys and that they're really not at a disadvantage entering the stock market.”

People Giving Bigs Boys Investing Fund Mutual Entering Disadvantages Mutual Fund

Author:Ron Chernow

“By the late 1980s people realized that houses did not always appreciate and that they could fluctuate like any other market commodity.”

People House Late Appreciate Commodity

Author:Ron Chernow

“I'm dubious about having Social Security put into the stock market. I think that we have gotten very far away from the idea that there's something sacrosanct about retirement investments.”

Thinking Ideas Social Security Investment Retirement Far Away Social Security Dubious

Author:Ron Chernow

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

Plans Retirement

Author:Ron Chernow

“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.”

People Knows Havens Retirement Funding Scenarios

Author:Ron Chernow

“There is a kind of fear, approaching a panic, that's spreading through the Baby Boom Generation, which has suddenly discovered that it will have to provide for its own retirement.”

Kind Generations Baby Retirement Panic Baby Boom

Author:Ron Chernow

“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.”

Certain Easy Opinion Enemy Silent All Time Occasions Adopted Grandson

Book:Washington: A Life

Source: Washington: A Life

“In waiting for the glorious moment of that first book contract, writers must have giant reservoirs of patience. Yet they must persevere because they don't know the destiny that is being worked out for them. They creep humbly along the ground, without the spacious aerial vision of their lives that would show them the destiny in store for them.”

Knows Firsts Book Moments Shows Waiting Vision Destiny Stores Giants Glorious Contracts Persevere Creeps Reservoirs

Book:In Search of a Voice

Source: In Search of a Voice

“A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight. (Alexander Hamilton's 'thesis on discretion' written to his son James shortly before his fatal duel with Burr.)”

Men Wells Two Sometimes Silence Taken Written Son Gains Weight Sentences Thrown Consideration Palms Discretion Prudent Thesis Hamilton Burrs

Author:Ron Chernow

“A crash really occurs when you suddenly have a violent downturn in the market that then heralds a long bull market.”

Long Violent Crash Bulls Downturn Bull Markets

Author:Ron Chernow

“After 1929, so many people had been traumatized by the stock market crash that there was a lost generation.”

People Lost Generations Crash Lost Generation Market Crash Stock Market Crash

Author:Ron Chernow

“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.”

Years Deals Four Becoming Hero Association Four Years Suspicion Hamilton Yorktown

Author:Ron Chernow

“Any bull market covers a multitude of sins, so there may be all sorts of problems with the current system that we won't see until the bear market comes.”

May Problem Sin Bears Currents Multitudes Bulls Bull Markets

Author:Ron Chernow

“Because of the love affair between the American public and the stock market, it is possible for entrepreneurs, technological visionaries and inventors of every sort to get financing.”

Entrepreneur Affair Technological Inventor Visionaries Love Affair Financing

Author:Ron Chernow

“Early on, New York already had a national and even international identity.”

New York Identity International National Identity

Author:Ron Chernow

“Hamilton had one of those extraordinary 18th-century minds that touched on virtually every major topic of the day.”

Mind Century Majors Extraordinary Touched Topics 18th Century Hamilton

Author:Ron Chernow

“I don't think that a mutual fund that invests exclusively in biotech start-ups or invests exclusively in companies in Thailand offers any great safety or diversification.”

Thinking Company Offers Safety Fund Mutual Thailand Diversification Mutual Fund Biotech Great Safety

Author:Ron Chernow

“If you go back to the time of J.P. Morgan, the world of high finance was completely wholesale. The prestigious investment banks on Wall Street appealed exclusively to large corporations, governments, and to extremely wealthy individuals.”

Ifs World Government Individual Streets Wall Investment Finance Corporations Wealthy Wholesale Prestigious

Author:Ron Chernow

“In the 1970s we saw a massive shift of household savings from the banks to the brokerage firms.”

Saws Saving Firm Massive Household Savings

Author:Ron Chernow

“One of the very nice things about investing in the stock market is that you learn about all different aspects of the economy. It's your window into a very large world.”

World Different Economy Nice Aspect Window Investing Very Nice Nice Things

Author:Ron Chernow

“You don't want too much fear in a market, because people will be blinded to some very good buying opportunities. You don't want too much complacency because people will be blinded to some risk.”

People Want Opportunity Too Much Risk Very Good Buying Complacency Blinded

Author:Ron Chernow

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

Thinking Past Historian Tides Tidy

Author:Ron Chernow

“When news of the crash came, probably a lot of people in small towns and farms across America felt a sense of grim satisfaction that the sinners had finally been punished for their wicked ways.”

People Way America Felt News Towns Satisfaction Wicked Sinner Farms Crash Small Town Grim Wicked Ways

Author:Ron Chernow

“The history of Wall Street is inseparable from New York.”

Streets New York Wall Inseparable

Author:Ron Chernow

“The best argument for mutual funds is that they offer safety and diversification. But they don't necessarily offer safety and diversification.”

Offers Argument Safety Fund Mutual Workplace Diversification Mutual Fund Workplace Safety

Author:Ron Chernow

“Stock market corrections, although painful at the time, are actually a very healthy part of the whole mechanism, because there are always speculative excesses that develop, particularly during the long bull market.”

Long Whole Healthy Painful Excess Mechanism Bulls Corrections Bull Markets

Author:Ron Chernow

“Mutual fund managers are trapped in this rather deadly vicious circle: the more successful they are, the more money flows into their mutual fund. Then, it is more difficult for them to beat the market averages or even to match their own past performance.”

Past Difficult Successful Beats Flow Performances Average Circles Managers Fund Mutual Trapped More Money Reincarnation Vicious Mutual Fund Vicious Circles

Author:Ron Chernow

“The Great Inflation of the 1970s destroyed faith in paper assets, because if you held a bond, suddenly the bond was worth much less money than it was before.”

Ifs Paper Destroyed Ties Assets Inflation

Author:Ron Chernow

“The securities laws of the 1930s were so important because it forced companies to file registration statements and issue prospectuses, and it remedied the imbalance of information.”

Important Law Company Issues Security Information Statements Tyrants Files 1930s Imbalance Registration

Author: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.”

People Sex Sin Risk Achieve Crime Goes On Rewards Punishment Bulls Great Risk Bull Markets Great Reward

Author:Ron Chernow

“That strategy of buy and hold, which is the sound and sensible one for the individual, can have very dangerous and perverse effects for the market as a whole.”

Whole Individual Sound Effects Dangerous Strategy Sensible

Author:Ron Chernow

“The American public historically was really not part of the stock market.”

Author:Ron Chernow

“In the 1920s, Wall Street was a world that was really dominated by professional speculators and stock pools. These people had a monopoly over information.”

People World Streets Information Wall Pool Monopoly Speculators

Author:Ron Chernow

“In the 1920s you could buy stocks on margin. You could put 10 percent down and borrow the rest against your stocks.”

Percent Down And Margins

Author:Ron Chernow

About the Author

Born: March 3, 1949
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 55

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People Fund Mutual Mutual Fund Bull Markets Bulls Retirement Thinking World Crash

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Books & Sources

Alexander HamiltonRelated source material

GrantRelated source material

In Search of a VoiceRelated source material

Washington: A LifeRelated source material

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