Top 280 David McCullough Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “But no statistic conveyed a true picture of Panama rain. It had to be seen, to be felt, smelled; it had to be heard to be appreciated. The effect was much as though the heavens had opened and the air had turned instantly liquid.”

— David McCullough

202. “It is very bad policy to ask one flying machine man about the experiments of another, because every flying machine man thinks that his method is the only correct one.”

— David McCullough

203. “It must not remain our desire only to acquire the art of the bird,” Lilienthal had written. “It is our duty not to rest until we have attained a perfect scientific conception of the problem of flight.”

— David McCullough

204. “Read books. Try to understand the reason why things happen, why they are as they are. If you see only the surface phenomena, then the world becomes extremely confusing, ever more unsettling. But if the reasons are understood there’s a kind of simplicity that emerges.”

— David McCullough

205. “The author perceptively outlines what might be an underrated aspect of his subject and of many others whose public achievements are of note – a “gift for friendship”. McCullough says Adams, despite his towering intellect and curmudgeonly demeanor, had a soft heart for other people and a genuine interest in their particulars.”

— David McCullough

206. “As time would prove, he had written one of the great, enduring documents of the American Revolution. The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the oldest functioning written constitution in the world.”

— David McCullough

207. “He wasn’t a hero, or an original thinker. His beliefs were their beliefs, their way of talking was his way of talking. He was on their side. He was one of them. If he stumbled over a phrase or a name, he would grin and try again, and they would smile with.”

— David McCullough

208. “Then, in the way of a fatherly sermon, he added, ‘We learn much by tribulation, and by adversity our hearts are made better.”

— David McCullough

209. “By the close of summer, with increasing losses from disease, desertions, and absences of one sort or other, his army was in serious decline. Spirits suffered. The patriotic fervor that had sent thousands rushing to the scene in late April and May was hardly evident any longer.”

— David McCullough

210. “Never contradict anybody,” he was advised by Franklin, whom he admired above all men, though it was advice he hardly needed.”

— David McCullough

211. “Learning the secret of flight from a bird,” Orville would say, “was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician.”

— David McCullough

212. “Later that same spring of 1872, in his own annual report, Roebling would write that most men got over their troubles either by suffering for a long time or “by applying the heroic mode of returning into the caisson at once as soon as pains manifested themselves.”

— David McCullough

213. “The Democratic Party would win in November because the Democratic Party was the people’s party. The Republicans were the party of the privileged few, as always.”

— David McCullough

214. “A man who has not better government of his tongue, no more command of his temper, is unfit for everything but children’s play and the company of boys.”

— David McCullough

215. “Roosevelt loved the subtleties of human relations... He was sensitive to nuances in a way that Harry Truman never was and never would be. Truman, with his rural Missouri background, and partly too, because of the limits of his education, was inclined to see things in far simpler terms, as right or wrong, wise or foolish. He dealt little in abstractions.”

— David McCullough

216. “Oh! Almighty and Everlasting God, Creator of Heaven, Earth and the Universe: Help me to be, to think, to act what is right, because it is right; make me truthful, honest and honorable in all things; make me intellectually honest for the sake of right and honor and without thought of reward to me. Give me the ability to be charitable, forgiving and patient with my fellowmen – help me to understand their motives and their shortcomings – even as Thou understandest mine! Amen, Amen, Amen. Say.”

— David McCullough

217. “Bright but not distinctive as an undergraduate, he had gone to Harvard Law School and finished in the same class as Justice Holmes. But the law bored him – as it had Ferdinand de Lesseps, as it had Roosevelt – so he had decided to be an engineer, “that I may lead a good and useful life.”

— David McCullough

218. “You will ever remember that all the end of study is to make you a good man and a useful citizen,” Adams.”

— David McCullough

219. “A veteran artist counsels a less experienced one to start a painting using colors in the middle range so that the painter can move to more extreme colors as the work progresses.”

— David McCullough

220. “These are strong, clear declarations of faith in education as the bulwark of freedom. For self-government to work, the people must be educated.”

— David McCullough

221. “The author perceives nuances of Abigail Adams’ character in the occasional errors she makes in readily quoting John Milton. Rather than giving the observer a reason to quibble, they are evidence that she had absorbed Milton’s works enough to feel comfortable quoting them from memory.”

— David McCullough

222. “Meanwhile, an article in the September issue of the popular McClure’s Magazine written by Simon Newcomb, a distinguished astronomer and professor at Johns Hopkins University, dismissed the dream of flight as no more than a myth. And were such a machine devised, he asked, what useful purpose could it possibly serve?”

— David McCullough

223. “Not incidentally, the Langley project had cost nearly $70,000, the greater part of it public money, whereas the brothers’ total expenses for everything from 1900 to 1903, including materials and travel to and from Kitty Hawk, came to a little less than $1,000, a sum paid entirely from the modest profits of their bicycle business.”

— David McCullough

224. “He was the first one on deck in the morning and generally the last to leave at night, and once, when nearly every passenger was miserably seasick and lay groaning in his berth, Roebling, his head spinning, his stomach churning, was resolutely walking the deck. The malady, he rationalized, “involves no danger at all,” noting that “a cheerful carefree disposition and a manly, vigorous spirit will have great influence on the sickness.” For.”

— David McCullough

225. “We learn much by tribulation, and by adversity our hearts are made better.”

— David McCullough

226. “The title did not make the man, of course, but it enhanced the standing of the man in the eyes of others.”

— David McCullough

227. “Why would anyone wish to be provincial in time, any more than being tied down to one place through life, when the whole reach of the human drama is there to experience in some of the greatest books ever written.”

— David McCullough

228. “To be unable to read was the ultimate measure of wretchedness.”

— David McCullough

229. “Boston Latin School.”

— David McCullough

230. “Especially for those who had been with Washington and who knew what a close call it was at the beginning – how often circumstance, storms, contrary winds, the oddities of strengths of individual character had made the difference – the outcome seemed a little short of a miracle.”

— David McCullough

231. “Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind. For years Rush had been investigating the causes of and remedies for madness and other “diseases” of the mind. “The subjects of them have hitherto been enveloped in mystery,” he wrote to Adams. “I have endeavored to bring them down to the level of all other diseases of the human body, and to show that the mind and body are moved by the same causes and subject to the same laws.”

— David McCullough

232. “Well, they’ve made a flight.”

— David McCullough

233. “There was a burst of applause when George Washington entered and walked to the dais. More applause followed on the appearance of Thomas Jefferson, who had been inaugurated Vice President upstairs in the Senate earlier that morning, and “like marks of approbation” greeted John Adams, who on his entrance in the wake of the two tall Virginians seemed shorter and more bulky even than usual.”

— David McCullough

234. “On a medical school professor noted for slowly, carefully interviewing the patient: “He taught the love of truth.”

— David McCullough

235. “Writing again, he stressed that the events of war are always uncertain. Then, paraphrasing a favorite line from the popular play Cato by Joseph Addison – a line that General Washington, too, would often call upon – Adams told her, “We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it.”

— David McCullough

236. “In no way did any of this discourage or deter Wilbur and Orville Wright, any more than the fact that they had had no college education, no formal technical training, no experience working with anyone other than themselves, no friends in high places, no financial backers, no government subsidies, and little money of their own. Or.”

— David McCullough

237. “Why was it that a nation without wars to fight seemed to lose its honor and integrity, Adams pondered in one letter to Rush. “War necessarily brings with it some virtues, and great and heroic virtues, too,” he wrote. “What horrid creatures we men are, that we cannot be virtuous without murdering one another?” Thousands.”

— David McCullough

238. “Those for whom things came easily usually made less of an effort, not more.”

— David McCullough

239. “Talk helps shape one’s thoughts.”

— David McCullough

240. “Wright died in his room at home at 7 Hawthorn Street at 3:15 in the morning, Thursday, May 30, 1912. He was forty-five years old.”

— David McCullough

241. “Adams lay peacefully, his mind clear, by all signs. Then late in the afternoon, according to several who were present in the room, he stirred and whispered clearly enough to be understood, “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

— David McCullough

242. “The best dividends on the labor invested have invariably come from seeking more knowledge rather than more power.” Signed Wilbur and Orville Wright, March 12, 1906.”

— David McCullough

243. “Crucial to Lee’s plan was the defense of that part of Long Island directly across the East River and particularly the imposing river bluffs near the tiny hamlet called Brooklyn, which was also spelled Breucklyn, Brucklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, or Brookline, and amounted to no more than seven or eight houses and an old Dutch church that stood in the middle of the Jamaica Road, the main road inland from the Brooklyn ferry landing.”

— David McCullough

244. “In their allegiance to the King and to the rule of law, they saw themselves as the true American patriots. They had wanted no part of the rebellion.”

— David McCullough

245. “Jefferson saw history as largely a chronicle of mistakes to be avoided.”

— David McCullough

246. “Bicycles were proclaimed morally hazardous. Until now children and youth were unable to stray very far from home on foot. Now, one magazine warned, fifteen minutes could put them miles away. Because of bicycles, it was said, young people were not spending the time they should with books, and more seriously that suburban and country tours on bicycles were “not infrequently accompanied by seductions.”

— David McCullough

247. “I steer my bark with hope in the head, leaving fear astern.” Their.”

— David McCullough

248. “When you see one of these graceful crafts sailing over your head, and possibly over your home, as I expect you will in the near future, see if you don’t agree with me that the flying machine is one of God’s most gracious and precious gifts.”

— David McCullough

249. “Some serious Christians may possibly tremble for the Ark, and think the Christian religion in danger when divested of the patronage of civil power. They may fear inroads from licentiousness and infidelity, on the one hand, and from sectaries and party divisions on the other. But we may dismiss our fears, when we consider that truth can never be in real hazard, where there is a sufficiency of light and knowledge, and full liberty to vindicate it.”

— David McCullough

250. “He asked for national compulsory health insurance to be funded by payroll deductions. Under the system, all citizens would receive medical and hospital service irrespective of their ability to pay. And.”

— David McCullough