David McCullough Quotes

Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times.

When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.

If you don't quit, and don't cheat, and don't run home when trouble arrives, you can only win.

When people tell you you're on the brink of death, you've got to dig pretty deep to get it together.

I was terrified the first time that I had a big problem in my business. I was obviously terrified when they diagnosed me with cancer in 1994. I was terrified when my son used to drive too fast. But I do believe in the fact that fear is not an option, so I always try to face it and not be afraid.

When I said the city would be stronger, I didn't know that. I just hoped it. There are parts of you that say, 'Maybe we're not going to get through this.' You don't listen to them.

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it.

The Bible says to 'fear not,' but this doesn't mean you should never feel scared. It means when you do feel fear, keep going forward and do what you are supposed to do. Or as I like to say, do it afraid.

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to wake.

I'm proof against that word failure. I've seen behind it. The only failure a man ought to fear is failure of cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best.

Life must continue, even with the security situation so bad, because I have ambitions. I love this sport too much.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.

True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job anyhow, that's what courage is.

I've stood my ground in life, alone, even against overwhelming forces with the might and money to crush me.

Be courageous. I have seen many depressions in business. Always America has emerged from these stronger and more prosperous. Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith! Go forward!

It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.

Even in my really bad, drugged-out days, I didn't go away. I still toured, still did interviews. I never gave up the fight. That's why I'm who I am today, because I didn't leave. And I think I made the right choice.

The struggle is always worthwhile, if the end be worthwhile and the means honorable; foreknowledge of defeat is not sufficient reason to withdraw from the contest.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it'd take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn't want to retreat.

It is in the midst of disasters that bold men grow bolder.

Necessity, which even makes cowards brave ...

In order to do any thing in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.

True courage is being afraid, and going ahead and doing your job.

The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. If you can live through that you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line, it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

I don't give up; I go down fighting in everything I do - being a mother, being a wife, being a wrestler, being a Marine, being a sister.