Quote

The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.

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
Founders
Understand
Humans

More quotes by David McCullough

Image
There is a human longing to go back to other times. We all know how when we were children we asked our parents, What was it like when you were a kid? I think it probably has something to do with our survival as a species.
David McCullough
Image
I had been writing for about twelve years. I knew pretty well how you could find things out, but I had never been trained in an academic way how to go about the research.
David McCullough
Image
First of all, you can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past.
David McCullough
Image
The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement... To do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.
David McCullough
Image
Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
David McCullough
Image
To this noble end the delegates had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
David McCullough
Image
You can't learn to play the piano without playing the piano, you can't learn to write without writing, and, in many ways, you can't learn to think without thinking. Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That's why it's so hard.
David McCullough
Image
I want people to see that all-important time in a different way-in the way it was. For of a number of reasons, including the absence of photographs, we tend to see the men and women of the Revolution as not quite real. And we have far too little sense of what they suffered.
David McCullough
Image
Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. - John Adams
David McCullough
Image
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
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
Image
Never assume that people in positions of responsibility are behaving responsibly.
David McCullough
Image
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
Image
Washington was a man of exceptional, almost excessive self-command, rarely permitting himself any show of discouragement or despair.
David McCullough
Image
Napoleon could never imagine that some people loved their country as much as he loved his own.
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
Nobody ever lived in the past.
David McCullough
Image
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
Image
I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Greene
David McCullough
Image
Freedom is found through the portals of our nation's libraries.
David McCullough