No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.
—David McCullough
Topics: History
History is not the story of heroes entirely. It is often the story of cruelty and injustice and shortsightedness. There are monsters, there is evil, there is betrayal. That’s why people should read Shakespeare and Dickens as well as history—they will find the best, the worst, the height of noble attainment and the depths of depravity.
—David McCullough
Topics: History
To this noble end the delegates had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
—David McCullough
Topics: Honor, Live
Had proven himself a leader of remarkable ability, a man not only of enterprising ideas, but with the staying power to carry them out.
—David McCullough
Topics: Power, Sin, Yin
Hurry was the order of the day, every day.
—David McCullough
The preparations were elaborate and mammoth in scale, and Washington threw himself into the effort, demanding that not an hour be lost.
—David McCullough
Topics: Preparation, Effort, Labor
Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it is so hard.
—David McCullough
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
—David McCullough
Topics: History
The first of all qualities of a general is courage.
—David McCullough
Topics: General, Courage
My God these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.
—David McCullough
Topics: Work, God
It was an utterly phenomenal achievement.
—David McCullough
Topics: Achieve, Achievement
Seeing things as they were, not as he would wish they were, was known to be one of Washington’s salient strengths.
—David McCullough
Topics: Strength
Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.
—David McCullough
Topics: Courage, Despair
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
Topics: Act, Perfect, Perfection
Real success is finding your life work in the work that you love. That’s it. Don’t worry about making a living, don’t worry about popularity or fame. Make what you do and what you make count more than what you own.
—David McCullough
Topics: Work, Success & Failure
They must be cool but determined…he threatened instant death to any man who showed cowardice.
—David McCullough
Topics: War, Death
Just as he had shown no signs of despair when prospects looked bleak, he now showed no elation in what he wrote or in his outward manner or comments.
—David McCullough
Topics: War, Despair
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
Topics: Power, Act
[On Knox:]…despite…repeated mishaps that would have broken lesser spirits several times over.
—David McCullough
Topics: Spirit
With the situation as gray as it could be, no one was more conspicuous in his calm presence of mind than Washington. They must be “cool but determined” he had told the men before the battle, when spirits were high. Now, in the face of catastrophe, he was demonstrating what he meant by his own example. Whatever anger or torment or despair he felt, he kept to himself.
—David McCullough
Topics: Despair, Spirit, Mind
Washington had no illusions about the difficulties to be faced. He was gravely, realistically apprehensive about the magnitude of the enemy force in route.
—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
Topics: Health, Worry, Work, Strength
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- James Truslow Adams American Historian
- Jacques Barzun American Cultural Historian
- Henry Adams American Historian
- Edgar Lee Masters American Poet, Novelist
- John Jay Chapman American Writer
- Daniel J. Boorstin American Historian
- Will Durant American Historian
- James Harvey Robinson American Historian
- Theodore H. White American Journalist
- Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
Leave a Reply