David McCullough Quotes - Page 4

May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.

You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture. You've got to become them." (Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History)

Find something to do that you love because then the work itself is always the reward not the recompense. And if you love what you're doing you probably do better at it than doing something you don't love and therefore you'll be compensated appropriately.

First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.

The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what we do? How much is luck the deciding factor?

If the attitude of the teacher toward the material is positive, enthusiastic, committed and excited, the students get that. If the teacher is bored, students get that and they get bored, quickly, instinctively.

To shut yourself from history is to shut yourself off from say music or painting or the theatre, literature for the rest of your life. It would be to cheat yourself of the pleasures of life.

I've always been dissatisfied, I know that. But lately I find that I reek of discontentment. It fills my throat, and it floods my brain. And sometimes I fear there is no longer a dream, but only the discontentment.

I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.

With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that.

My love is to tell a story but I like stories that evolve from character, from the nature of the individuals involved.

Housetops were covered with 'gazers'; all wharves that offered a view were jammed with people ... As British officers happily reminded one another, it was the largest fleet ever seen in American waters. In fact it was the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century, the largest, most powerful force ever sent forth by Britain or any other nation.

The great thing about the arts is that you can only learn to do it by doing it.

America faces an enemy who believes in enforced ignorance. And all that we stand for is the open mind, the generous spirit, the ideal of tolerance, freedom, education, opportunity.

I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Greene

I feel very strongly that history is about everything. It isn't just about politics or the military or social issues. If art, music, engineering, science, medicine, finance, the world of architecture and technology - if those are left out, then you're not getting a full sense of the human condition. History is human and we human beings are involved in all kinds of things and that's part of our humanity.

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.

I don't pick my presidents because they were great presidents. I'm not much interested in ranking presidents and who is the best and who is the worst. I am much more inclined to be interested in them if they had an interesting life and if they were a complete person - and by that I mean they also had flaws and failings.

Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.

The more Adams thought about the future of his country, the more convinced he became that it rested on education. Before any great things are accomplished, he wrote to a correspondent, a memorable change must be made in the system of education and knowledge must become so general as to raise the lower ranks of society nearer to the higher. The education of a nation instead of being confined to a few schools and universities for the instruction of the few, must become the national care and expense for the formation of the many.

Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free," Jefferson said, "expects what never was and never will be." And if the gap between the educated and the uneducated in America continues to grow as it is in our time, as fast as or faster than the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between the educated and the uneducated is going to be of greater consequence and the more serious threat to our way of life. We must not, by any means, misunderstand that.

He had kept his head, kept his health and his strength, bearing up under a weight of work and worry that only a few could have carried.

People are so helpful. People will stop what they're doing to show you something, to walk with you through a section of the town, or explain how a suspension bridge really works.

I would pay to do what I do if I had to.

Nobody ever lived in the past.