I’ve read several of McCullough’s books – The Great Bridge, Truman, Johnstown Flood. Always enjoyed them. I’ve been struggling a bit with this one. I don’t think it’s the book, I think I’m just tired of the subject. I just finished a biography of George Mason and another of George Washington, so the information is getting repetitive.
Few tidbits about the book……
Interesting that Congress voted in favor of independence on July 2nd, not July 4th.
John Adams was a quote machine: “Facts are stubborn things”.
“Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially for the lower classes of people, are so extremely wise and useful that to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.”
“Pen, ink, and paper and a sitting posture are great helps to attention and thinking.”
“We may please ourselves with the prospect of free and popular Governments. But there is great Danger, that those Governments will not make us happy. God grant they may. But I fear, that in every assembly, Members will obtain an Influence, by Noise not sense. By Meanness, not Greatness. By Ignorance not Learning. By contracted Hearts not large souls.”
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.
I would fain grow old learning many things.
Marriage destroyed my relationship with two wonderful men.
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin what else does a man need to be happy?
Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.
Dreams must be heeded and accepted. For a great many of them come true.
One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars and the world will be better for this.
This war is not about slavery.
Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.
The words of truth are simple.
Whether in success or in failure, I'm proud of every single movie I've ever directed.
The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.
Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.
Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter.
With my wife I don't get no respect. I made a toast on her birthday to 'the best woman a man ever had.' The waiter joined me.
The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do.
Laughter is day, and sobriety is night a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.
There is much to be said for failure. It is much more interesting than success.
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which mean never losing your enthusiasm.
Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.
In your thirst for knowledge, be sure not to drown in all the information.
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education all politics can do is keep us out of war.
Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena.
The less men think, the more they talk.
If cats were double the size they are now, they'd probably be illegal.
You can't blame gravity for falling in love.
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.
If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.
Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.
Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.
Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands.
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.
Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.
The Wedding March always reminds me of the music played when soldiers go into battle.
A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.
Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.
Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.
Above our life we love a steadfast friend.
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.
I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.
Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.
When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.
Science is nothing, but trained and organized common sense.
The right of nature... is the liberty each man hath to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature that is to say, of his own life.
What's a man's age? He must hurry more, that's all Cram in a day, what his youth took a year to hold.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
The passion of hatred is so long lived and so obstinate a malady that the surest sign of death in a sick person is their desire for reconciliation.
Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies.
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.
An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.
That friendship will not continue to the end which is begun for an end.
Start with God - the first step in learning is bowing down to God only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on.
Rare is the union of beauty and purity.
They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.
Falling in love and having a relationship are two different things.
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
Where we love is home - home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.
The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property.
Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness.
My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottage princes' palaces.
There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.
Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.
A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
Don't matter how much money you got, there's only two kinds of people: there's saved people and there's lost people.
There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.
I believe only in art and failure.
A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.
What strikes me is the fact that in our society, art has become something which is only related to objects, and not to individuals, or to life.
The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream not only plan, but also believe.
The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.
Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.
However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again.
If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.
The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.
It's okay to be a fat man. It's prestige and power and all of that. But fat women are seen as just lazy and stupid and having no self-control.
Creativity takes courage.
If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance.
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
There's no abiding success without commitment.
I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.
It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.
A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.
Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober not to make us sorry but wise.
Maybe it is something to do with age, but I have become fonder of poetry than of prose.
Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.
Living in an age of advertisement, we are perpetually disillusioned. The perfect life is spread before us every day, but it changes and withers at a touch.
Humility is attentive patience.
Men often take their imagination for their heart and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.
The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.
I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.
Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.
There's nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child.
When theater becomes a soothing middle-class thing, when it's packaged as the Night Out, then that's the death of it.
It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.
Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.
Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.
Whatever good things we build end up building us.
It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.
Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.
I like children - fried.
Try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything.
We must develop knowledge optimization initiatives to leverage our key learnings.
A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.
Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
Happiness does not consist in self-love.
Nothing succeeds like success.
Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power.
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
There's always the motivation of wanting to win. Everybody has that. But a champion needs, in his attitude, a motivation above and beyond winning.
There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.
Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.
A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.
To love someone means to see him as God intended him.
Religion is more than life. Remember that his own religion is the truest to every man even if it stands low in the scales of philosophical comparison.
Society cares for the individual only so far as he is profitable.
Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else.
The hole and the patch should be commensurate.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later.
We are the only real aristocracy in the world: the aristocracy of money.
Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.
God is a thinking thing.
Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.
When people lack teachers, their tendencies are not corrected when they do not have ritual and moral principles, then their lawlessness is not controlled.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.
Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.
My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.
If you can't tell a spoon from a ladle, then you're fat!
A man doesn't know what he knows until he knows what he doesn't know.
Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.
Tradition demands that we not speak poorly of the dead.
Quarrels often arise in marriages when the bridal gifts are excessive.
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
I believe that no man who holds a leader's position should ever accept favors from either side. He is then committed to show favors. A leader must stand alone.
Death is not natural for a state as it is for a human being, for whom death is not only necessary, but frequently even desirable.
Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.
Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?
Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
I'm also interested in the modern suggestion that you can have a combination of love and sex in a marriage - which no previous society has ever believed.
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff.
It's really a person's mistakes that make him endearing.
Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.
The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Courage in danger is half the battle.
A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours.
If we don't know life, how can we know death?
The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever.
I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.
Health consists with temperance alone.
Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I'm sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.
Only government can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink and make the combination worthless.
Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common sense.
Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.
We are different, in essence, from other men. If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.
What makes photography a strange invention is that its primary raw materials are light and time.
Heat of blood makes young people change their inclinations often, and habit makes old ones keep to theirs a great while.