David McCullough Quotes

We can be almost certain of being wrong about the future, if we are wrong about the past.

A recorded past is no more than a bygone present composed of the footprints made by human beings actually going somewhere but not knowing (in any extended sense), and certainly not revealing to us, how, they came to be afoot on these particular journeys.

Leaders have to figure it out when there is no road map.

The past is history, the future's a mystery.

Hindsight is the historian's necessary vice.

Leadership can not be measured in a poll or even in the result of an election. It can only be truly seen with the benefit of time. From the perspective of 20 years, not 20 days.

History is a vast early warning system.

History never looks like history when you are living through it.

Politics can be likened to driving at night over unfamiliar hills and mountains. Close attention must be paid to what the beam can reach and the next bend.

Once we agree on the future, the present will be much easier. A captain who does not know where he wants to sail, there is no wind on Earth that will bring him there. We have first to decide where we want to go, where we want to sail.

History is the best guide to the future.

Leadership is all about taking people on a journey. The challenge is that most of the time, we are asking people to follow us to places we ourselves have never been.

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.

A captain who does not know where he wants to sail, there is no wind on Earth that will bring him there.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Young man, I have lived in this house many years and have seen the occupants of the White House across the square come and go, and nothing you minor officials or the occupant of that house can do will affect the history of the world for long.

We have to go into the past to go further and further into the future.

In times like these, it is helpful to remember that there have always been times like these

Statesmen are judged by history beyond contemporary debates.

You never know how history is going to view things.

There’s nothing wrong with a politician saying ‘I don’t know.’ Especially in a disaster there is nothing wrong with saying ‘I don’t know.’

Forty-eight hours is a long time in politics

History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It's been around a long time.

History is an antidote to the hubris of the present.

My countrymen: we have reached a turning point in our history. The choice is yours. Shall we venture into this brave new world, bright with possibilities, or retreat to the safety of our familiar but sterile past? I am for crossing the frontier.