David McCullough Quotes & Sayings

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

Not incidentally, the Langley project had cost nearly $70,000, the greater part of it public money, whereas the brothers' total expenses for everything from 1900 to 1903, including materials and travel to and from Kitty Hawk, came to a little less than $1,000, a sum paid entirely from the modest profits of their bicycle business. — David McCullough

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

Others as well had come to see them as more than mere eccentrics. Life on the Outer Banks was harsh. Making ends meet was a constant struggle. Hard workers were greatly admired and in the words of John T. Daniels, the Wrights were "two of the workingest boys" ever seen, "and when they worked, they worked. . . . They had their whole heart and soul in what they were doing. — David McCullough

You can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past. They lived in the present. It is their present, not our present, and they don't know how it's going to come out. They weren't just like we are because they lived in that very different time. You can't understand them if you don't understand how they perceived reality. — David McCullough

I think the public library system is one of the most amazing American institutions. Free for everybody. If you ever get the blues about the status of American culture there are still more public libraries than there are McDonald's. During the worst of the Depression not one public library closed their doors. — David McCullough

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? — David McCullough

Pen, ink, and paper and a sitting posture are great helps to attention and thinking. — David McCullough

People often ask me if I'm working on a book. That's not how I feel. I feel like I work in a book. It's like putting myself under a spell. And this spell, if you will, is so real to me that if I have to leave my work for a few days, I have to work myself back into the spell when I come back. It's almost like hypnosis. — David McCullough

When you start to write, things begin to come into focus in a way they don't when you're not writing. It's a very good way to find out how much you don't know because you learn specifically what you need to know that you don't know at the moment by writing. — David McCullough

I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene. — David McCullough

If I were giving a young man advice as to how he might succeed in life, I would say to him, pick out a good father and mother, and begin life in Ohio. WILBUR WRIGHT — David McCullough

The town, although it had "suffered greatly," was not in as bad shape as he had expected, he wrote to John Hancock, "and I have a particular pleasure in being able to inform you, sir, that your house has received no damage worth mentioning." Other fine houses had been much abused by the British, windows broken, furnishings smashed or stolen, books destroyed. But at Hancock's Beacon Hill mansion all was in order, as General Sullivan also attested, and there was a certain irony in this, since the house had been occupied and maintained by the belligerent General James Grant, who had wanted to lay waste to every town on the New England coast. "Though I believe," wrote Sullivan, "the brave general had made free with some of the articles in the [wine] cellar. — David McCullough

I write on the typewriter. I like it because I like the feeling of making something with my hands. I like pressing the key and a letter comes up and is printed on a piece of paper. I can understand that. — David McCullough

marinate your mind — David McCullough

Here, I say, I have amused myself in reading and thinking of my absent friend, sometimes with a mixture of pain, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes anticipating a joyful and happy meeting, whilst my heart would bound and palpitate with the pleasing idea, and with the purest affection I have held you to my bosom 'til my whole soul has dissolved in tenderness and my pen fallen from my hand. How often do I reflect with pleasure that I hold in possession a heart equally warm with my own, and fully as susceptible of the tenderest impressions, and who even now whilst he is reading here, feels all I describe. — David McCullough

To write is to think, and to write well is to think well, — David McCullough

It was an utterly phenomenal achievement. — David McCullough

It would be one of the great tragedies of history if at the very moment of the victory, now within our grasp, such distrust, such lack of faith, should prejudice the entire undertaking after the colossal losses of life, material and treasure. Churchill — David McCullough

Every line from you exhilarates my spirits and gives me a glow of pleasure, but your kind congratulations are solid comfort to my heart. The little strength of mind and the considerable strenght of body that I once possessed appear to be all gone, but while I breathe I shall be your friend. — David McCullough

oldest of all forms — David McCullough

For a West Point graduate to abandon his appointed task in the face of adversity or personal discomfort was all but inconceivable. — David McCullough

Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love. — David McCullough

There's no such thing as a foreseeable future. — David McCullough

Why was it that a nation without wars to fight seemed to lose its honor and integrity, Adams pondered in one letter to Rush. "War necessarily brings with it some virtues, and great and heroic virtues, too," he wrote. "What horrid creatures we men are, that we cannot be virtuous without murdering one another?" Thousands — David McCullough

In the North American Review, in August 1889, in an article titled "The Lesson of Conemaugh," the director of the U. S. Geological Survey, Major John Wesley Powell, wrote that the dam had not been "properly related to the natural conditions" and concluded: "Modern industries are handling the forces of nature on a stupendous scale. . . . Woe to the people who trust these powers to the hands of fools. — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

LORD BOLINGBROKE, the eighteenth-century political philosopher, said that "history is philosophy teaching by examples." Thucydides is reported to have said much the same thing two thousand years earlier. Jefferson — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

Lord Bolingbroke, who was an eighteenth-century political philosopher, called history "philosophy taught with examples. — David McCullough

Nonetheless, as Katharine knew, they were having a splendid time, especially because of their work, but also in good measure because of the "Kitty Hawkers," whose consistent friendliness and desire to be of help, whose stories and ways of looking at life and expressing their opinions, made an enormous difference. The brothers were now hearing, as they had not before, words like "disremember" for "forget" and such expressions as "I'll not be seeing you tomorrow," or smooth water described being "slick calm." "Hoi toide" was "high tide. — David McCullough

From ancient times and into the Middle Ages, man had dreamed of taking to the sky, of soaring into the blue like the birds. One savant in Spain in the year 875 is known to have covered himself with feathers in the attempt. Others devised wings of their own design and jumped from rooftops and towers - some to their deaths - in Constantinople, Nuremberg, Perugia. — David McCullough

That there would be a political advantage in having the declaration written by a Virginian was clear, for the same reason there had been political advantage in having the Virginian Washington in command of the army. But be that as it may, Jefferson, with his "peculiar felicity of expression," as Adams said, was the best choice for the task, just as Washington had been the best choice to command the Continental Army, and again Adams had played a key part. Had his contributions as a member of Congress been only that of casting the two Virginians in their respective, fateful roles, his service to the American cause would have been very great. — David McCullough

All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden on others. — David McCullough

I can fairly be called an amateur because I do what I do, in the original sense of the word - for love, because I love it. On the other hand, I think that those of us who make our living writing history can also be called true professionals. — David McCullough

But let us not forget, too, that it was John Adams who nominated George Washington to be commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. It was John Adams who insisted that Jefferson be the one to write the Declaration of Independence. And it was President John Adams who made John Marshall chief justice of the Supreme Court. As a casting director alone, he was brilliant. Abigail — David McCullough

Strange it was that the British commander-in-chief, known for his chronic gambling, seemed to give no thought to how his American opponent might play his hand. O — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

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 — David McCullough

Best of all, Galignani's, the English bookstore and reading room, a favorite gathering place, stood across the street from the hotel. There one could pass long, comfortable hours with a great array of English and even American newspapers. Parisians were as avid readers of newspapers as any people on earth. Some thirty-four daily papers were published in Paris, and many of these, too, were to be found spread across several large tables. The favorite English-language paper was Galignani's own Messenger, with morning and evening editions Monday through Friday. For the newly arrived Americans, after more than a month with no news of any kind, these and the American papers were pure gold. Of the several circulating libraries in Paris, only Galignani's carried books in English, and indispensable was Galignani's New Paris Guide in English. Few Americans went without this thick little leather-bound volume, fully 839 pages of invaluable insights and information, plus maps. — David McCullough

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) — David McCullough

I feel that history is in many ways the most important of all subjects because it is about everything and because it's about who we are and how we came to be the way we are. — David McCullough

The level of the Pacific was not twenty feet higher than that of the Atlantic, as had been the accepted view for centuries. Sea level was sea level, the same on both sides. The difference was in the size of their tides. (The tides on the Pacific are tremendous, eighteen to twenty feet, while on the Caribbean there is little or no tide, barely more than a foot. When Balboa stood at last on the Pacific shore, he had seen no rush of lordly breakers, but an ugly brown mud flat reaching away for a mile and more, because he had arrived when the tide was out.) — David McCullough

In fact, it was the largest expeditionary force of the 18th century. The largest, most powerful force ever set forth from Britain or any nation. — David McCullough

What was most striking about the long course of human events, Truman had concluded from his reading of history, were its elements of continuity, including, above all, human nature, which had changed little if at all through time. "The only new thing in the world is the history you don't know," he would one day tell an interviewer. — David McCullough

But to the managing editor of Life, Joseph J. Thorndike, Jr., the problem centered on bias. "Of course, we did not intentionally mislead our readers," he wrote. But I do think that we ourselves were misled by our bias. Because of that bias we did not exert ourselves enough to report the side we didn't believe in. We were too ready to accept the evidence of pictures like the empty auditorium at Omaha and to ignore the later crowds. We were too eager to report the Truman "bobbles" and to pass over the things that were wrong about the Republican campaign: empty Dewey speeches, the bad Republican candidates, the dangers of Republican commitments to big business. — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

The people - why the people are magnificent: in their carriages, which are numerous, in their house furniture, which is fine, in their pride and conceit, which are inimitable, in their profaneness, which is intolerable, in the want of principle, which is prevalent, in their Toryism, which is insufferable. — David McCullough

I'm very aware how many distractions the reader has in life today, how many good reasons there are to put the book down. — David McCullough

Farmers and soldiers knew about the weather. Weather could be the great determiner between failure and success, the great test of one's staying power. — David McCullough

For more than fifty years, or long before the Wright brothers took up their part, would-be "conquerors of the air" and their strange or childish flying machines, as described in the press, had served as a continuous source of popular comic relief. — David McCullough

When I'm reading for my own pleasure, I read things other than history or archival material. I read a lot of fiction. I'm very fond of mysteries. — David McCullough

Wilbur had already made an immensely important and altogether original advance toward their goal. — David McCullough

No bird soars in a calm. — David McCullough

The change from the crowded, stifling hot, noisy confines of the workspace at Dayton to the open reaches of sea and sky on the Outer Banks could hardly have been greater or more welcome. They loved Kitty Hawk. "Every year adds to our comprehension of the wonders of this place," wrote Orville to Katharine soon after arrival. — David McCullough

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
(Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, Humanities, July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4) — David McCullough

By reaching for the stars, Jefferson gave us all the impulse. He — David McCullough

For some people the experience of crossing by carriage was positively terrifying. "You drive over to Suspension Bridge," wrote Mark Twain, "and divide your misery between the chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below, and the chances of having a railway-train overhead smashing down onto you. Either possibility is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together, they amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness. — David McCullough

Oh! Almighty and Everlasting God, Creator of Heaven, Earth and the Universe: Help me to be, to think, to act what is right, because it is right; make me truthful, honest and honorable in all things; make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor and without thought of reward to me. Give me the ability to be charitable, forgiving and patient with my fellowmen - help me to understand their motives and their shortcomings - even as Thou understandest mine! Amen, Amen, Amen. Say — David McCullough

the formality of the presidency, all — David McCullough

If you haven't met Kenny (Young) you have not seen how the spirit of Boston can be embodied by one single man. — David McCullough

In a day and age when, unfortunately, so few write letters or keep a diary any longer, the Wright Papers stand as a striking reminder of a time when that was not the way and of the immense value such writings can have in bringing history to life. — David McCullough

Three things ruin a man," Harry would tell a reporter long afterward. "Power, money, and women. "I never wanted power," he said. "I never had any money, and the only woman in my life is up at the house right now." On — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called Life on a Little Known Planet. It's about insects. It will make you feel better. — David McCullough

History is not just about dates and quotations. And it's not just about politics, the military and social issues, though much of it of course is about that. It's about everything. It's about life history. It's human. And we have to see it that way. We have to teach it that way. We have to read it that way. It's about art, music, literature, money, science, love - the human experience. — David McCullough

The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved. . . . — David McCullough

I love to go to the places where things happen. I like to walk the walk and see how the light falls and what winter feels like. — David McCullough

We believed in a good God, a bad Devil, and a hot Hell, and more than anything else we believed that same God did not intend man should ever fly. — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

Why do some men reach for the stars and so many others never even look up? — David McCullough

I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities. — David McCullough

stood a bit over five feet, and all who knew her knew what a force she was. In a household of three men and one woman, she more than held her own. She was the most vivacious of the family, a tireless, all-season — David McCullough

Love of learning will never let you down. You can have a quest for money, you can have a quest for power, you can have a quest for fame and they are sometimes gratifying and sometimes self-destructive. The love of learning is always gratifying and never self-destructive. The more educated, the more cultivated a society becomes, better off is everybody. — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

We want great men who, when fortune frowns, will not be discouraged. ~Colonel Henry Knox — David McCullough

The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think ... Let us dare to read, think, speak, write. — David McCullough

One had only to look at the map to see that Panama was the proper place for the canal. The route was already well established, there was a railroad, there were thriving cities at each end. Only at Panama could a sea-level canal be built. It was really no great issue at all. Naturally there were problems. There were always problems. There had been large, formidable problems at Suez, and to many respected authorities they too had seemed insurmountable. But as time passed, as the work moved ahead at Suez, indeed as difficulties increased, men of genius had come forth to meet and conquer those difficulties. The same would happen again. For every challenge there would be a man of genius capable of meeting and conquering it. One must trust to inspiration. As for the money, there was money aplenty in France just waiting for the opening of the subscription books. — David McCullough

locomotive, Special trucks — David McCullough

Your education never stops and college is just the beginning. You come out of college with a huge advantage in that you've ideally and more times than not you've come out with a love of learning and that's what matters above all. — David McCullough

So, it was done, the break was made, in words at least: on July 2, 1776, in Philadelphia, the American colonies declared independence. If not all thirteen clocks had struck as one, twelve had, and with the other silent, the effect was the same.
It was John Adams, more than anyone, who had made it happen. Further, he seems to have understood more clearly than any what a momentous day it was and in the privacy of two long letters to Abigail, he poured out his feelings as did no one else:
The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more. — David McCullough

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

You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen, Adams — David McCullough

In truth, the situation was worse than they realized, and no one perceived this as clearly as Washington. Seeing things as they were, and not as he would wish them to be, was one of his salient strengths. — David McCullough

To what object are my views directed?" he asked. "Am I grasping at money, or scheming for power?" Yes, he was amassing a library, but to what purpose? "Fame, fortune, power say some, are the ends intended by a library. The service of God, country, clients, fellow men, say others. Which of these lie nearest my heart? — David McCullough

On July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong, another American born and raised in western Ohio, stepped onto the moon, he carried with him, in tribute to the Wright brothers, a small swatch of the muslin from a wing of their 1903 Flyer. — David McCullough

It is almost a reconciliation to having my leg broken to contemplate the amount of reading I am going to do this summer. I am getting better fast and I am afraid I'll get well so soon I won't get to read enough. — David McCullough

Recently been killed in an accident. Much that he read — David McCullough

Thus began the Bulloch line in America, the annals of which, by Mittie's time, included one noted — David McCullough

As time would prove, he had written one of the great, enduring documents of the American Revolution. The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the oldest functioning written constitution in the world. — David McCullough

Climb mountains not so the world can see you, but so you can see the world. — David McCullough

You are facing one of the greatest decisions of your career. You must choose between Shonts and Gorgas. If you fall back upon the old methods of sanitation, you will fail, just as the French failed. If you back up Gorgas and his ideas and let him pursue his campaign against the mosquitoes, you will get your canal. — David McCullough

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. — David McCullough

Unlike the people you see in Mathew Brady's photographs from the Civil War, the men and women of the Revolution seem more like characters in a costume pageant. And it's a pageant in which the performers are all handsome as stage actors, with uniforms and dress that are always costume perfect. — David McCullough

By the close of summer, with increasing losses from disease, desertions, and absences of one sort or other, his army was in serious decline. Spirits suffered. The patriotic fervor that had sent thousands rushing to the scene in late April and May was hardly evident any longer. — David McCullough

By the time he went to work for James J. Hill in 1889, he had survived Mexican fevers, Indian attack, Upper Michigan mosquitoes, and Canadian blizzards. He had been treed by wolves on one occasion; he — David McCullough

Yes, we have much to be seriously concerned about, much that needs to be corrected, improved, or dispensed with. But the vitality and creative energy, the fundamental decency, the tolerance and insistence on truth, and the good-heartedness of the American people are there still plainly. Many — David McCullough

A veteran artist counsels a less experienced one to start a painting using colors in the middle range so that the painter can move to more extreme colors as the work progresses. — David McCullough

Why limit yourself to the experience of your own relatively brief time on earth, according to your biological clock, when the whole realm of the human experience reaching back infinitely far is available to you? — David McCullough

Remove yourself, sir! — David McCullough