History Quotes by David McCullough

“Remove yourself, sir!”

— David McCullough

“marinate your mind”

— David McCullough

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

— David McCullough

I think that we need history as much as we need bread or water or love.

— David McCullough

No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read.

— David McCullough

It would be the most crucial day of the entire war.

— David McCullough

The pull, the attraction of history, is in our human nature. What makes us tick? Why do we do what we do?…

— David McCullough

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

— David McCullough

“If you haven't met Kenny (Young) you have not seen how the spirit of Boston can be embodied by one single man.”

— David McCullough

“As history abundantly shows, Congress, for all its faults, has not been the unbroken parade of clowns and thieves and posturing windbags…

— David McCullough

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And…

— David McCullough

“No harm's done to history by making it something someone would want to read." ( The Course of Human Events , NEH…

— David McCullough

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

— David McCullough

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

— David McCullough

The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it,…

— David McCullough

We are raising a generation of young Americans who are, to a very large degree, historically illiterate. It's not their faults. There's…

— David McCullough

“It might never have happened. That’s among the most important lessons of history . . . and of life. There is so much around us…

— David McCullough

“To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an…

— David McCullough

There are people who are trying to write history for the general reader who can be quite tedious. That said, I do…

— David McCullough

“The study of history is an antidote to the hubris of the present – the idea that everything we have, everything we…

— David McCullough

I feel that history is in many ways the most important of all subjects because it is about everything and because it's…

— David McCullough

You've got to marinate your head, in that time and culture. You've got to become them." (Speaking about researching, and reading, and…

— David McCullough

“Even mighty states and kingdoms are not exempted. If we look into history, we shall find some nations rising from contemptible beginnings…

— David McCullough

“One might also say that history is not about the past. If you think about it, no one ever lived in the…

— David McCullough

History is about life. It's awful when the life is squeezed out of it and there's no flavor left, no uncertainties, no…

— David McCullough

“History isn’t just something that ought to be taught, read, or encouraged only because it will make us better citizens. It will…

— David McCullough

I feel very strongly that history is about everything. It isn't just about politics or the military or social issues. If art,…

— David McCullough

“it seems to me that one of the truths about history that needs to be made clear to a student or to…

— David McCullough

You have to get inside the people you are writing about. You have to go below the surface. And that's to a…

— David McCullough

History is not just about dates and quotations. And it's not just about politics, the military and social issues, though much of…

— David McCullough

“Lord Bolingbroke, who was an eighteenth-century political philosopher, called history “philosophy taught with examples.”

— David McCullough

Napoleon could never imagine that some people loved their country as much as he loved his own.

— David McCullough

When I'm reading for my own pleasure, I read things other than history or archival material. I read a lot of fiction.…

— David McCullough

To shut yourself from history is to shut yourself off from say music or painting or the theatre, literature for the rest…

— David McCullough

I could not do what I do without the kindness, consideration, resourcefulness and work of librarians, particularly in public libraries... What started…

— David McCullough

To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me it's an…

— David McCullough

We should draw on our story, we should draw on our history. If we don't know who we are, if we don't…

— David McCullough

I'm absolutely positive it's in our human nature to want to know about the past. The two most popular movies of all…

— David McCullough

Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called…

— David McCullough

Little children can learn anything, just as they can learn a foreign language. The mind is so absorbent then. There ought to…

— David McCullough