Richard Brookhiser Quotes & Sayings

It was as simple as walking and as hard as walking on with so far gone and so far yet to go. — Richard Brookhiser

Good politicians know when to move on, sooner or later. — Richard Brookhiser

Most principles are limp until they are tested. — Richard Brookhiser

[Washington had won] a war for independence and then gone home. [He embodied] the legend of the Roman who returned to his plow after saving his country. — Richard Brookhiser

Some lawns have all the cheer of old cemeteries. — Richard Brookhiser

Madison loathed Hamilton and loved Jefferson above all. — Richard Brookhiser

The young women who attract so much attention never change: They are all stupid. They have at best only the crudest notions of their own power, and never calculate motives or consequences. Giving a young woman a young woman's body makes as much sense as giving ten teenagers Lamborghinis and telling them to drive in figure 8s around a parking lot. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln was a master of small group theatrics. — Richard Brookhiser

Madison lived in his head and public speaking did not come naturally to him. — Richard Brookhiser

Washington offered a republican substitute for the dignity of royalty. — Richard Brookhiser

If enlightened public opinion was a bulwark of freedom, then leaders must labor ceaselessly to enlighten or manipulate it. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln bore down or anything he handled, mastering both the details and the principles. — Richard Brookhiser

Jefferson could strike up the band even when he was being lazy or fearful. — Richard Brookhiser

Only the stupefying ignorance of young women prevents them from comprehending the stupefying emptiness of the men who cluster round them. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln had a stubborn concern for first principles. — Richard Brookhiser

Humor and seriousness can be an unstable mix. — Richard Brookhiser

Public opinion should not be confused with popular sentiment. Popular sentiment is what people say to one another around their dinner tables. Popular opinion is what they say to callers from polling organizations. — Richard Brookhiser

Libertarians are believers in small government who really mean it
no excuses, no exceptions. [For Libertarians], the excesses of government are their best recruiters. — Richard Brookhiser

The lightheaded and the fashionable are always willing to shed tears for distant underdogs. — Richard Brookhiser

Depression can seem absurdly self aggrandizing to those who do not experience it, But that does not make it any less painful to those who do. — Richard Brookhiser

He might not take their advice, but he took their temperature. — Richard Brookhiser

The beaten path can be a busy and distracting place. — Richard Brookhiser

notice these inconsistencies: Christian and anti-Christian polemicists — Richard Brookhiser

A storyteller, a displaced poet, will absorb reading differently. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln learned to summon the passions, but he never addressed his audience as sweethearts. — Richard Brookhiser

Literature offered a safe circumscribed outlet for sadness. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln admitted his infirmities to make way for his spring. — Richard Brookhiser

One of the benefits of a bad education is the constant pleasure of discovery. — Richard Brookhiser

As with almost every long oration, there were loose ends. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln told a family friend that his father taught him to work, but never learned him to love it. — Richard Brookhiser

She became at once more intimate and more exalted. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln was less well-read than many a professor or journalist, but what he read, he read deeply. — Richard Brookhiser

Since we never get everything we want or need from our families, we look for sufficiency in surrogates. — Richard Brookhiser

To use the past, he had to save it from aspects of itself. — Richard Brookhiser

Routine is supposed to be the great deadener of souls; how much worse is the half-completed task, the broken round, the unfulfilled routine? — Richard Brookhiser

Inspiring words are potent, and sometimes dangerous, things. They can inspire idiots and devils as well as great man. — Richard Brookhiser

The towering genius is not apolitical. — Richard Brookhiser

Young, healthy communities can afford to roll the dice. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln loved other people's jokes as much as his own. — Richard Brookhiser

One of the highest marks of citizenship is fighting for the common defense. — Richard Brookhiser

Any man's life can be seen as a series of engagements with his fathers, Including the surrogates provided by life and literature. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln began to emerge from his funk by helping a coworker who looked up to him out of a funk of his own. — Richard Brookhiser

Depression manifests itself in a lack of will. — Richard Brookhiser

She noticed, as an exceptional woman would, that her stepson was exceptional. — Richard Brookhiser

Lincoln Road that sorrow is most difficult for the young because it, "takes them unawares." The old, he said, have learned to anticipate difficulty. Lincoln wrote that sorrow is most difficult for the young because it, "takes them unawares." The old, he said, have learned to anticipate difficulty. — Richard Brookhiser

Dominance can be a tempration to division. "There are so many of us, we can afford to fight amongst ourselves. — Richard Brookhiser

God produced great writing, a matter of first importance to a man like Lincoln, ever impressed with the nature of cause and forces. — Richard Brookhiser

Aaron Burr was like a new refrigerator. He was bright, cold and empty. — Richard Brookhiser