Top 159 Quotes & Sayings by David McCullough - Page 3

I feel that as much as I enjoy loafing, there is something higher for which to live.

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.

Once I discovered the endless fascination of doing the research and of doing the writing, I knew I had found what I wanted to do in my life. Every book is a new journey. I never felt I was an expert on a subject as I embarked on a project.

...Had proven himself a leader of remarkable ability, a man not only of enterprising ideas, but with the staying power to carry them out.

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.

My strong feeling is that we must learn more about how we learn. I'm convinced that we learn by struggling to find the solution to a problem on our own with some guidance, but getting in and getting our hands dirty and working it.

You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition.

Freedom is found through the portals of our nation's libraries.

Napoleon could never imagine that some people loved their country as much as he loved his own.

I often think of that when I hear people say that they haven't time to read.

The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.

You have to get inside the people you are writing about. You have to go below the surface. And that's to a very large degree what all writers are doing - they're trying to get below the surface. Whether it's in fiction or poetry or writing history and biography. Some people make that possible because they write wonderful letters and diaries. And you have to sort of go where the material is.

We all know the old expression, "I'll work my thoughts out on paper." There's something about the pen that focuses the brain in a way that nothing else does. That is why we must have more writing in the schools, more writing in all subjects, not just in English classes.

The preparations were elaborate and mammoth in scale, and Washington threw himself into the effort, demanding that not an hour be lost.

One of the things about the arts that is so important is that in the arts you discover the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it. You can't write by reading a book about it. The only way to learn how to write a book is to sit down and try to write a book

To this noble end the delegates had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

They must be cool but determined...he threatened instant death to any man who showed cowardice.

With the situation as gray as it could be, no one was more conspicuous in his calm presence of mind than Washington. They must be "cool but determined" he had told the men before the battle, when spirits were high. Now, in the face of catastrophe, he was demonstrating what he meant by his own example. Whatever anger or torment or despair he felt, he kept to himself.

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

Nothing ever invented can you a bigger life than a book.

Little children can learn anything, just as they can learn a foreign language. The mind is so absorbent then. There ought to be a real program to educate teachers who want to teach grade school children about history.

The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it, the way you have a talent for public speaking or music or whatever - it shouldn't be allowed to lie dormant. It should be brought alive.

There's no such thing as a foreseeable future.

We must not think of learning as only what happens in schools. It is an extended part of life. The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system.

According to Adams, Jefferson proposed that he, Adams, do the writing [pf the Declaration of Independence], but that he declined, telling Jefferson he must do it. Why?" Jefferson asked, as Adams would recount. Reasons enough," Adams said. What can be your reasons?" Reason first: you are a Virginian and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second: I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third: You can write ten times better than I can.

Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.

George P. A. Healy; "I knew no one in France, I was utterly ignorant of the language, I did not know what I should do when once there; but I was not yet one-and-twenty, and I had a great stock of courage, of inexperience—which is sometimes a great help—and a strong desire to be my very best.

There is a human longing to go back to other times. We all know how when we were children we asked our parents, "What was it like when you were a kid?" I think it probably has something to do with our survival as a species.

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

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.

Read somewhat in the English poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and constructive companions through your whole life.

I feel that what I do is a calling. I would pay to do what I do if I had to. I will never live long enough to do the work I want to do: the books I would like to write, the ideas I would like to explore.

One of the regrets of my life is that I did not study Latin. I'm absolutely convinced, the more I understand these eighteenth-century people, that it was that grounding in Greek and Latin that gave them their sense of the classic virtues: the classic ideals of honor, virtue, the good society, and their historic examples of what they could try to live up to.

There are no people on earth in whom a spirit of enthusiastic zeal is so readily kindled, and burns so remarkably, as Americans

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams

Washington had performed his role to perfection. It was no enough that a leader look the part; by Washington's rules, he must know how to act it with self-command and precision.

To write is to think, and to write well is to think well.

It would be the most crucial day of the entire war.

Since September 11, it seems to me that never in our lifetime, except possibly in the early stages of World War II, has it been clearer that we have as a source of strength, a source of direction, a source of inspiration - our story.