David McCullough is regarded as the pioneer of modern history. He is also a renowned lecturer, author and narrator. He was a member of ‘Skulls and Bones’, and was an apprentice at media giants like ‘Time’, ‘Life’, ‘American Heritage’ and also the ‘United States Information Agency’. He viewed every topic that had not been written on before as a potential book. His works on President Truman and Founding Father John Adams won him Pulitzer Prize in 1993 and 2002 respectively. He also bagged the National Book Award twice. He has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom which is the highest civilian award in the United States. McCullough is also acclaimed for his works as a narrator, film presenter and a TV host. His sayings and thoughts will keep your spirits high. ‘The Johnstown Flood’ was his first book and his latest book ‘The Wright Brothers’ continue to be successful in the market. The year 2016 also marked 50 years of his association with publisher, Simon and Schuster. David continues to entertain both readers and writers. His simple yet powerful quotes are sure to give you an adrenaline rush.Â
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)
When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail's response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, "My bursting heart must find vent at my pen.
No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read."
(The Course of Human Events, NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)
David McCullough
The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know...do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.
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)
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
How can we know who we are and where we are going if we don't know anything about where we have come from and what we have been through, the courage shown, the costs paid, to be where we are?
David McCullough
No bird soars in a calm. WILBUR WRIGHT
David McCullough
All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden on others.
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.
We learn much by tribulation, and by adversity our hearts are made better.
David McCullough
There are no people on earth in whom a spirit of enthusiastic zeal is so readily kindled, and burns so remarkably, as Americans
David McCullough
Vivez joyeux” was the old saying. “Live joyfully.
David McCullough
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.
The only way to compose myself and collect my thoughts," he wrote in his diary,"is to set down at my table, place my diary before me, and take my pen into my hand.
The best dividends on the labor invested have invariably come from seeking more knowledge rather than more power.” Signed Wilbur and Orville Wright, March 12, 1906.
David McCullough
A leader must look and act the part.
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
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
It is in Paris that the beating of Europe’s heart is felt. Paris is the city of cities." - Victor Hugo
He loved politics in large part exactly because it meant time spent with men like Cactus Jack Garner(who would be remembered for observing that the vice presidency was not worth a pitcher of warm piss).
As the Sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established
David McCullough
Make business first, pleasure afterward, and that guarded. All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden on others. He made a point of treating
David McCullough
I feel that as much as I enjoy loafing, there is something higher for which to live.
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
Honesty, sincerity, and openness, I esteem essential marks of a good mind,
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.
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
Those for whom things came easily usually made less of an effort, not more.
David McCullough
Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.
David McCullough
Adams was both a devout Christian and an independent thinker, and he saw no conflict in that.
David McCullough
Marinate your mind
David McCullough
Patience which I assure you requires more force of character than does action.
The study of history is an antidote to the hubris of the present – the idea that everything we have, everything we do and everything we think is the ultimate, the best.
Lord Chatham, the King of Prussia, nay, Alexander the Great, never gained more in one campaign than the noble lord has lost-he has lost a whole continent.
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