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Theodore H. White QUOTES

Theodore H. White QUOTES

1 " The flood of money that gushes into politics today is a pollution of democracy. "

― Theodore H. White

2 " But if America falters in greatness and purpose, than Americans are nothing but the offscourings and hungry of other lands. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1960

3 " The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment "

― Theodore H. White

4 " The forces that run in American politics in our age are many and varied; they run in strange ways in our times of general education--they run in the meeting of white and black; in the nagging, daily concern for war and peace; in automation and unemployment. Yet one man must make them all clear enough for American people to vote and express their desire.

He is the President. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1960

5 " To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see everyday, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform. "

― Theodore H. White

6 " To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can have. "

― Theodore H. White

7 " Every American election summons the individual voter to weigh the past against the future. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1960

8 " A genuine primary is a fight within the family of the party - and, like any family fight, is apt to be more bitter and leave more enduring wounds than battle with the November enemy. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1960

9 " In politics, the things that do not happen are frequently as significant as those that do. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1964

10 " Liberalism: for every complicated problem there exists both an intellectual and a moral solution and they coincide. "

― Theodore H. White , In Search of History

11 " I have decided that I will test my ability … in the fires of the primaries and not just in the smoke-filled rooms of Miami Beach. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1968

12 " The best politics for any president is to be a good president. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1964

13 " In the politics of consent, no victory is ever permanent unless the victor makes it firm on a base of persuasion. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1964

14 " All men who run for presidency of the United States are amateurs; there is no way of becoming a professional at it, and all of them, win or lose, are forever altered in spirit of character by the ordeal. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1964

15 " The first and most essential quality of a presidential candidate, as Averell Harriman once pointed out, is that he should lust for the job - he should want it more than all things, with a passion surpassing all emotion and probably even all principle. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1964

16 " Professionals in a campaign are servants; they can tell him only how to do something once he tells them what it is he wants to do. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1964

17 " The 'smoke-filled room' as political reality is now as dead as Prohibition. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1960

18 " The Americans of the age were not an irreligious people; and the fact that they were Christian was very important, for the marks of Christianity lay all across the Constitution. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1960

19 " Were I to become the scholar I once hoped to be, I would choose such moments of political embryology as my field of study, and concentrate first on Germany. I would choose Germany because in 1933 a handful of men had seized a modern state and made its people into the most hated nation in the world. In 1949 and 1950 I saw another handful of men take over in Germany- dull, dreary, plodding men- and saw them convert Germany in the next twenty years into a decent society. What frightened me then, and frightens me still, is how very few men it takes at the head of any state to give it its character of good or evil, of freedom, tyranny, torture, butchery or benevolence. "

― Theodore H. White , In Search of History

20 " The development of an image is a mysterious thing: once a public figure has been cast in a public role, it is almost impossible for him to change the character. It is as if someone has assembled personality traits into a convenient pattern, no writer ever re-examines it: it is easier to use the accepted pattern. "

― Theodore H. White , The Making of the President 1964