Quote

You have overburdened your argument with ostentatious erudition.

David McCullough

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

David McCullough
Age: 91
Born: 1933
Born: July 7
Author
Biographer
Historian
Journalist
Writer
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
David Gaub McCullough
David G. McCullough
Overburdened
Abigail
Ostentatious
Erudition
Argument

More quotes by David McCullough

Image
Unlike the people you see in Mathew Brady's photographs from the Civil War, the men and women of the Revolution seem more like characters in a costume pageant. And it's a pageant in which the performers are all handsome as stage actors, with uniforms and dress that are always costume perfect.
David McCullough
Image
Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.
David McCullough
Image
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
Image
I'm absolutely positive it's in our human nature to want to know about the past. The two most popular movies of all time, while not historically accurate, are about core historic events: 'Gone With the Wind' and 'Titanic.'
David McCullough
Image
In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.
David McCullough
Image
America faces an enemy who believes in enforced ignorance. And all that we stand for is the open mind, the generous spirit, the ideal of tolerance, freedom, education, opportunity.
David McCullough
Image
There is only one person who can measure your success. That person is you.
David McCullough
Image
The first of all qualities of a general is courage.
David McCullough
Image
You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.
David McCullough
Image
We are raising a generation of young Americans who are, to a very large degree, historically illiterate. It's not their faults. There's no problem about enlisting their interest in history. None. The problem is the teachers so often have no history in their background.
David McCullough
Image
They must be cool but determined...he threatened instant death to any man who showed cowardice.
David McCullough
Image
I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities.
David McCullough
Image
The truth isn't just the facts. You can have all the facts imaginable and miss the truth, just as you can have facts missing or some wrong, and reach the larger truth.
David McCullough
Image
Nobody ever lived in the past.
David McCullough
Image
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
Image
I feel that history is in many ways the most important of all subjects because it is about everything and because it's about who we are and how we came to be the way we are.
David McCullough
Image
There are people who are trying to write history for the general reader who can be quite tedious. That said, I do feel in my heart of hearts that if history isn't well written, it isn't going to be read, and if it isn't read it's going to die.
David McCullough
Image
The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.
David McCullough
Image
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
Image
Your education never stops and college is just the beginning. You come out of college with a huge advantage in that you've ideally and more times than not you've come out with a love of learning and that's what matters above all.
David McCullough