The collection / 48 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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48 results · Page 2 of 2Play this collection ▷

01Undated

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.

David McCullough / quote

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02Undated

There was no opiate like a French pillow.

David McCullough / quote

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03Undated

All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden to others. -Bishop Milton Wright

David McCullough / quote

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04Undated

To be unable to read was the ultimate measure of wretchedness.

David McCullough / quote

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05Undated

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so

David McCullough / quote

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06Undated

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 / quote

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07Undated

A man who will steal for me will steal from me." Theodore Roosevelt, dismissing on the spot one of his best cowhands who was about to claim for his boss an unmarked animal.

David McCullough / quote

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08Undated

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 / quote

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09Undated

Government is nothing more than the combined force of society or the united power of the multitude for the peace, order, safety, good, and happiness of the people... There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all the others by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike... 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. Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable... There is a danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living wth power to endanger public liberty.

David McCullough / quote

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10Undated

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 / quote

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11Undated

The author perceives nuances of Abigail Adams' character in the occasional errors she makes in readily quoting John Milton. Rather than giving the observer a reason to quibble, they are evidence that she had absorbed Milton's works enough to feel comfortable quoting them from memory.

David McCullough / quote

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12Undated

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

David McCullough / quote

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13Undated

The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.

David McCullough / quote

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14Undated

We learn much by tribulation, and by adversity our hearts are made better. -Bishop Milton Wright to Orville Wright, 20 Sept. 1908

David McCullough / quote

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15Undated

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.

David McCullough / quote

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16Undated

On a medical school professor noted for slowly, carefully interviewing the patient: "He taught the love of truth.

David McCullough / quote

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17Undated

The author perceptively outlines what might be an underrated aspect of his subject and of many others whose public achievements are of note – a "gift for friendship". McCullough says Adams, despite his towering intellect and curmudgeonly demeanor, had a soft heart for other people and a genuine interest in their particulars.

David McCullough / quote

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18Undated

Rather than literally burning the midnight oil, which he judged to be unhealthy, John Adams advised his son to make the most of college by developing an inquisitive outlook that would prompt him to get to know the most exceptional scholars and question them closely. "Ask them about their tutors, manner of teaching. Observe what books lie on their tables. Fall into questions of literature, science, or what you will.

David McCullough / quote

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19Undated

Talk helps shape one's thoughts.

David McCullough / quote

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20Undated

In America, applause is won only by physical exertion.

David McCullough / quote

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21Undated

My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. It's about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. It's about Washington and the army and the war. It's the nadir, the low point of the United States of America.

David McCullough / quote

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22Undated

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.

David McCullough / quote

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23Undated

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read.

David McCullough / quote

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24Undated

Real success is finding you lifework in the work that you love.

David McCullough / quote

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