In an exhibition wherein paintings of nudes were commonplace, that of Madame Gautreau in her black evening dress was considered scandalously erotic. -from The Greater Journey

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

The source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think….Let us dare to read, think, speak, write.

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to...

A Smacking breeze has sprung up, and we shall part this company soon; and then for the Atlantic! Farewell then, my friends, my pursuits, my home, my country! Each bellying wave on its rough crest...

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had...

Government is nothing more than the combined force of society or the united power of the multitude for the peace, order, safety, good, and happiness of the people… There is no king or queen bee...

Remove yourself, sir!

as the Sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established

It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required – learn vitally anything – by the close study of books.

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.

No harm’s done to history by making it something someone would want to read.”(The Course of Human Events, NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 2003)

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

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

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...

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.”(Interview with NEH chairman Bruce Cole, Humanities, July/Aug. 2002, Vol. 23/No. 4)

One might also say that history is not about the past. If you think about it, no one ever lived in the past. Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, and their contemporaries didn’t walk about saying, “Isn’t...

You’ve got to marinate your head, in that time and culture.You’ve got to become them.”(Speaking about researching, and reading, and immersing yourself in History)

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

Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free,” Jefferson said, “expects what never was and never will be.” And if the gap between the educated and the uneducated in America continues to grow as...

All the money anyone needs is just enough to prevent one from being a burden to others. -Bishop Milton Wright

marinate your mind

Rather than literally burning the midnight oil, which he judged to be unhealthy, John Adams advised his son to make the most of college by developing an inquisitive outlook that would prompt him to get...

The more Adams thought about the future of his country, the more convinced he became that it rested on education. Before any great things are accomplished, he wrote to a correspondent, a memorable change must...

…it is always easier to deal with things than with men, and no one can direct his life entirely as he would choose. -Wilbur Wright, 1911

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

We learn much by tribulation, and by adversity our hearts are made better. -Bishop Milton Wright to Orville Wright, 20 Sept. 1908

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

Talk helps shape one’s thoughts.

One of the regrets of my life is that I did not study Latin. I’m absolutely convinced, the more I understand these eighteenth century people, that it was that grounding in Greek and Latin that...

When a friend of Abigail and John Adams was killed at Bunker Hill, Abigail’s response was to write a letter to her husband and include these words, “My bursting heart must find vent at my...

Measurements “are never enough. The artist’s eye and desire to breathe life into the subject must be the deciding factors.

In America, applause is won only by physical exertion.

There was no opiate like a French pillow.

George P. A. Healy; “I knew no one in France, I was utterly ignorant of the language, I did not know what I should do when once there; but I was not yet one-and-twenty, and...

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...

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. – John Adams

The evil of technology was not technology itself, Lindbergh came to see after the war, not in airplanes or the myriad contrivances of modern technical igenuity, but in the extent to which they can distance...

To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn’t just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it’s an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art...

Just to be heading away from the sea, to be immersed in a beautiful landscape again, to hear the sound of crows, was such a welcome change, and all to be seen so very appealing,...

Indeed, bribery, favoritism, and corruption in a great variety of forms were rampant not only in politics, but in all levels of society.

Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages. It’s accelerative. The more we know, the more we want to know.

A man who will steal for me will steal from me.” Theodore Roosevelt, dismissing on the spot one of his best cowhands who was about to claim for his boss an unmarked animal.

Morality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.

The thought of going abroad makes my heart Leap,” (Charles) Sumner wrote. “I feel, when I commune with myself about it, as when dwelling on the countenance and voice of a lovely girl. I am...