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)
Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book.
If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.
Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams
You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.
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.
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.
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)
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)
I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love.
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
You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition." Spoken by Abigail Adams
![Only those who [do] nothing [make] no mistakes.](https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/images/quotes/david-mccullough-14058.jpg)
Only those who [do] nothing [make] no mistakes.
The great thing about the arts is that you can only learn to do it by doing it.
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?
Nobody ever lived in the past.
All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden on others.
No bird soars in a calm. WILBUR WRIGHT
The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think....Let us dare to read, think, speak, write.
It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required - learn vitally anything - by the close study of books.
The past after all is only another name for someone else's present.
Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It's accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.
I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Greene
We learn much by tribulation, and by adversity our hearts are made better.
Remove yourself, sir!
Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society.
We dared to hope we had invented something that would bring lasting peace to the earth. But we were wrong. . .
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.
