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

• 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

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

  David McCullough

  Past, History, Forget

  16 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

• 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 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

• 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

  31 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

• 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

• 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

  24 Copy quote

• Take the teacher not the course. Find out who the great professors are - the great teachers - and take their courses because a subject that you may not think you're interested in may turn out to be infinitely fascinating because of the way it's taught.

  David McCullough

  Teacher, Thinking, May

  Source: belmontvision.com

  6 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.

  10 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.

  32 Copy quote

• We must not think of learning as only what happens in schools. It is an extended part of life. The most readily available resource for all of life is our public library system.

  David McCullough

  School, Thinking, Library

  8 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

  5 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

• 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

  Morning, Thinking, Work You Love

  Source: belmontvision.com

  5 Copy quote

• There's an awful temptation to just keep on researching. There comes a point where you just have to stop, and start writing.

  David McCullough

  Writing, Temptation, Awful

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov. May/June 2003.

  15 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

• You have to have wisdom and knowledge as well as virtue to preserve your rights and liberties.

  David McCullough

  Rights, Liberty, Virtue

  Source: www.neh.gov

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Needs, Knows

  Interview with Bruce Cole, www.neh.gov.

  4 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

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