Home > Author > David McCullough
1 " Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave. "
― David McCullough , John Adams
2 " 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. "
3 " Remove yourself, sir! "
4 " Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book. "
― David McCullough
5 " Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society. "
― David McCullough , 1776
6 " In an exhibition wherein paintings of nudes were commonplace, that of Madame Gautreau in her black evening dress was considered scandalously erotic. -from The Greater Journey "
7 " These are the times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman. "
8 " You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history. "
9 " marinate your mind "
10 " To his own children he was at once the ultimate voice of authority and, when time allowed, their most exuberant companion. He never fired their imaginations or made them laugh as their mother could, but he was unfailingly interested in them, sympathetic, confiding, entering into their lives in ways few fathers ever do. It was a though he was in league with them. "
― David McCullough , Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt
11 " [While writing history], I've kept the most interesting company imaginable with people long gone. Some I've come to know better than many I know in real life, since in real life we don't get to read other people's mail. "
12 " Those for whom things came easily usually made less of an effort, not more. "
― David McCullough , The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
13 " 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. "
14 " ...it is always easier to deal with things than with men, and no one can direct his life entirely as he would choose. -Wilbur Wright, 1911 "
― David McCullough , The Wright Brothers
15 " We who are residing in a foreign country, away from the immediate scene of action, perhaps can feel more deeply than those at home the evil effects of the present distracted condition of our country. "
16 " There was no opiate like a French pillow. "
17 " All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden to others. -Bishop Milton Wright "
18 " Read. Read all the time. Read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.” (Wellesly High School commencement speech, “You Are Not Special”, 6-12) "
19 " To be unable to read was the ultimate measure of wretchedness. "
20 " The evil of technology was not technology itself, Lindbergh came to see after the war, not in airplanes or the myriad contrivances of modern technical igenuity, but in the extent to which they can distance us from our better moral nature, or sense of personal accountability. "
― David McCullough , Brave Companions: Portraits in History
