Honor is one of the most important values for all of the characters in Hamilton. From the very first moments of the show, Alexander Hamilton is obsessed with his reputation. “All I have is my honor,” he tells his wife Eliza in their courtship; later, he and nemesis Aaron Burr share a rare moment of commiseration that when it came time to name a nearby street, nobody chose either one of them as the namesake. But while Hamilton sometimes depicts the quest for honor as noble or motivating, the piece also demonstrates the dangerous consequences of focusing so narrowly on one’s reputation—“you and your words, obsessed with your legacy,” a betrayed, grieving Eliza screams of her husband. At one point, Hamilton instigates a physical fight because someone insults his beloved mentor George Washington (“my name’s been through a lot,” Washington chastises, “I can take it”). And after Burr finds out about Hamilton’s illicit affair, the latter man publishes a pamphlet about the sordid ordeal in the hopes of preserving his political prospects, deeply wounding Eliza in the process: “in clearing your name, you have ruined our lives.” And worst of all, both Hamilton and his young son Philip get themselves killed in elaborate gunfights known as duels, where they go to deadly lengths to protect their sense of pride. Honor in Hamilton is thus a double-edged sword—his obsession with reputation and legacy propels Hamilton to greatness, and at the same time, his need to make a name for himself is the very thing that kills him.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Honor ThemeTracker
Honor Quotes in Hamilton
HAMILTON: I am not throwing away my shot!
I am not throwing away my shot!
Hey yo, I’m just like my country,
I’m young, scrappy and hungry,
And I’m not throwing away my shot!
KING GEORGE: You say
The price of my love’s not a price that you’re willing to pay.
You cry
In your tea which you hurl in the sea when you see me go by.
Why so sad?
Remember we made an arrangement when you went away.
Now you’re making me mad.
Remember, despite our estrangement, I’m your man.
WASHINGTON: It’s alright, you wanna fight, you’ve got a hunger.
I was just like you when I was younger.
Head full of fantasies of dyin’ like a martyr?
HAMILTON: Yes.
WASHINGTON: Dyin’ is easy, young man.
Living is harder.
ELIZA: I don’t pretend to know
The challenges you’re facing.
The worlds you keep erasing and creating in your mind.
But I’m not afraid.
I know who I married.
So long as you come home at the end of the day
That would be enough […]
Oh, let me be a part of the narrative
In the story they will write someday.
Let this moment be the first chapter
Where you decide to stay
And I could be enough
And we could be enough
That would be enough.
WASHINGTON: Let me tell you what I wish I’d known
When I was young and dreamed of glory.
You have no control
WASHINGTON, COMPANY: Who lives, who dies, who tells your story.
BURR: My father wasn’t around
HAMILTON: I swear that
BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll be around for you.
HAMILTON: I’ll do whatever it takes.
BURR: I’ll make a million mistakes.
BURR, HAMILTON: I’ll make the world safe and sound for you…
Will come of age with our young nation
We’ll bleed and fight for you, we’ll make it right for you.
If we lay a strong enough foundation
We’ll pass it on to you, we’ll give the world to you, and you’ll blow us all away….
Someday, someday
HAMILTON, JEFFERSON, MADISON, WASHINGTON: What do you want, Burr?
What do you want, Burr?
If you stand for nothing,
Burr, what do you fall for?
BURR: I
Wanna be in
The room where it happens.
The room where it happens.
I
Wanna be in
The room where it happens.
The room where it happens.
HAMILTON: Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I have committed many errors. I shall also carry with me
HAMILTON, WASHINGTON: The hope that my country will view them with indulgence
And that after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as I myself must soon be.
HAMILTON: I wrote my way out of hell.
I wrote my way to revolution.
I was louder than the crack in the bell.
I wrote Eliza love letters until she fell.
I wrote about the Constitution and defended it well.
And in the face of ignorance and resistance,
I wrote financial systems into existence.
And when my prayers to God were met with indifference,
I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance.
ELIZA: You and your words, obsessed with your legacy
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you?
You, you, you…
I’m erasing myself from the narrative.
Let future historians wonder
How Eliza reacted when you broke her heart.
You have torn it all apart […]
I’m burning the memories,
Burning the letters that might have redeemed you.
BURR: They won’t teach you this in your classes,
But look it up, Hamilton was wearing his glasses.
Why? If not to take deadly aim?
It’s him or me, the world will never be the same.
I had only one thought before the slaughter:
This man will not make an orphan of my daughter.
HAMILTON: If I throw away my shot, is this how you remember me?
What if this bullet is my legacy?
Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.
I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me.
America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me.
You let me make a difference.
A place where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints and rise up.
I’m running out of time, I’m running and my time’s up. Wise up. Eyes up.
