David McCullough Quotes

Quotes about:

• Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.

  David McCullough

  Wisdom, Famous Motivational, Mountain

  56 Copy quote

• However little television you watch, watch less.

  David McCullough

  Watches, Television, Littles

  David McCullough (2011). “David McCullough Library E-book Box Set: 1776, Brave Companions, The Great Bridge, John Adams, The Johnstown Flood, Mornings on Horseback, Path Between the Seas, Truman, The Course of Human Events”, p.420, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Never assume that people in positions of responsibility are behaving responsibly.

  David McCullough

  Responsibility, People, Assuming

  40 Copy quote

• History is not just about dates and quotations. And it's not just about politics, the military and social issues, though much of it of course is about that. It's about everything. It's about life history. It's human. And we have to see it that way. We have to teach it that way. We have to read it that way. It's about art, music, literature, money, science, love - the human experience.

  David McCullough

  Art, Military, Issues

  49 Copy quote

• 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

  Cost, Who We Are, Knows

  David McCullough (2007). “Brave Companions”, p.222, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Important, Who We Are, Way

  Source: belmontvision.com

  5 Copy quote

• You can make the argument that there's no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past. They lived in the present. It is their present, not our present, and they don't know how it's going to come out. They weren't just like we are because they lived in that very different time. You can't understand them if you don't understand how they perceived reality.

  David McCullough

  Past, Reality, Different

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov.

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Betrayal, Book, Reading

  49 Copy quote

• A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.

  David McCullough

  Past, History, Forget

  16 Copy quote

• We are all what we are, in large degree, because of others who have helped, coached, taught, counseled, who set a standard by example, who've taken an interest in our interests, opened doors, opened our minds, helped us see, who gave encouragement when we needed it, who reprimanded or prodded when we needed it, and at critical moments, inspired.

  David McCullough

  Encouragement, Taken, Doors

  30 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Play

  Source: www.neh.gov

  39 Copy quote

• History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

  David McCullough

  History, Who We Are, Way

  FaceBook post by David McCullough from Aug 13, 2012

  27 Copy quote

• Love of learning will never let you down. You can have a quest for money, you can have a quest for power, you can have a quest for fame and they are sometimes gratifying and sometimes self-destructive. The love of learning is always gratifying and never self-destructive. The more educated, the more cultivated a society becomes, better off is everybody.

  David McCullough

  Self, Quests, Sometimes

  Source: belmontvision.com

  23 Copy quote

• Real success is finding your lifework in the work that you love.

  David McCullough

  Love, Motivational, Success

  FaceBook post by David McCullough from Aug 17, 2012

  40 Copy quote

• And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.

  David McCullough

  Self, Principles, Matter

  David McCullough's Commencement Address at Wellesley High School in Wellesley, Massachusetts, www.thedailybeast.com. June 9, 2012.

  31 Copy quote

• When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness.

  David McCullough

  Hard Work, Mean, Pursuit Of Happiness

  "What makes a great leader?". Interview with Scott Berinato, www.afr.com. February 8, 2013.

  9 Copy quote

• Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called Life on a Little Known Planet. It's about insects. It will make you feel better.

  David McCullough

  Reading, Book, Feel Better

  7 Copy quote

• The past after all is only another name for someone else's present.

  David McCullough

  Past, Names

  David McCullough (2007). “Brave Companions”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• I think it's best to pick a biographical subject who lives to a ripe old age. Older people tend to relax and speak their minds. They're dropping some of the masks that they've been wearing. There's a candor.

  David McCullough

  Thinking, People, Mind

  Source: www.neh.gov

  4 Copy quote

• You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

  David McCullough

  Democracy, Participants, Knows

  FaceBook post by David McCullough from Aug 29, 2012

  4 Copy quote

• Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion–and those who will follow them. And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you’re not special. Because everyone is.

  David McCullough

  Independent, Exercise, Creative

  "Commencement speaker blasts students". www.washingtonpost.com. June 8, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Knowledge, Missing, Facts

  David McCullough (2011). “David McCullough American Presidents E-Book Box Set: John Adams, Mornings on Horseback, Truman, The Course of Human Events”, p.1749, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• History isn't just what happened, but what happened to whom and why and what would have been different if the cast of characters had been different.

  David McCullough

  Character, Different, Casts

  Source: belmontvision.com

  7 Copy quote

• Books can change your life. Some of the most influential people in our lives are characters we meet in books.

  David McCullough

  Book, Character, People

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

  26 Copy quote

• I think the public library system is one of the most amazing American institutions. Free for everybody. If you ever get the blues about the status of American culture there are still more public libraries than there are McDonald's. During the worst of the Depression not one public library closed their doors.

  David McCullough

  Thinking, Mcdonalds, Doors

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

  16 Copy quote

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