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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.

David McCullough

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David McCullough
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: July 7
Author
Biographer
Historian
Journalist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
David Gaub McCullough
David G. McCullough
American
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More quotes by David McCullough

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Each generation, we peel back biases that have blinded those before us. The more we know about the past enables us to ask richer and more provocative questions about who we are today.
David McCullough
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I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities.
David McCullough
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History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
David McCullough
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I don't pick my presidents because they were great presidents. I'm not much interested in ranking presidents and who is the best and who is the worst. I am much more inclined to be interested in them if they had an interesting life and if they were a complete person - and by that I mean they also had flaws and failings.
David McCullough
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I feel that what I do is a calling. I would pay to do what I do if I had to. I will never live long enough to do the work I want to do: the books I would like to write, the ideas I would like to explore.
David McCullough
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You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.
David McCullough
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The first of all qualities of a general is courage.
David McCullough
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Nobody ever lived in the past.
David McCullough
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Courage is contagious. If a leader shows courage, others get the idea.
David McCullough
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I think it is one of the most extraordinary elections, a turning point for our country and for the world. That remarkable young man [Barack Obama] has kept his demeanor, kept his temperament and has shown a power to inspire. I see what energy that he has inspired among the young. Well, it inspires us old goats too.
David McCullough
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Nothing ever invented provides such sustenance, such infinite reward for time spent, as a good book.
David McCullough
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Find something to do that you love because then the work itself is always the reward not the recompense. And if you love what you're doing you probably do better at it than doing something you don't love and therefore you'll be compensated appropriately.
David McCullough
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If the attitude of the teacher toward the material is positive, enthusiastic, committed and excited, the students get that. If the teacher is bored, students get that and they get bored, quickly, instinctively.
David McCullough
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Never assume that people in positions of responsibility are behaving responsibly.
David McCullough
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I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love.
David McCullough
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I think that a good education ought to be in part the idea that ease and joy are not synonymous. Some of the most fulfilling pleasures of life are to be found in work - found in work you love to do, work you want to do, work that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning.
David McCullough
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They must be cool but determined...he threatened instant death to any man who showed cowardice.
David McCullough
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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)
David McCullough
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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
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The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it, the way you have a talent for public speaking or music or whatever - it shouldn't be allowed to lie dormant. It should be brought alive.
David McCullough