There is only one person who can measure your success. That person is you.
David McculloughRead
If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Public libraries symbolize knowledge and access to information, which can be seen as a positive element in American culture.
David McCullough's quote highlights the importance of public libraries as bastions of knowledge and culture in America, serving as a counterbalance to the commercialization represented by fast-food chains like McDonald's. By emphasizing that there are more libraries than McDonald's, he aims to instill hope and remind us that the pursuit of learning and intellectual engagement remains a vibrant aspect of society, even amidst feelings of cultural decline.
Themes
LibrariesCultureKnowledgeEducationHope
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the value of public services, one might quote this to highlight the importance of libraries.
More from David Mccullough
All quotes βI just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities.
David McculloughRead
Napoleon could never imagine that some people loved their country as much as he loved his own.
David McculloughRead
When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness.
David McculloughRead
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 it is in our time, as fast as or faster than the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between the educated and the uneducated is going to be of greater consequence and the more serious threat to our way of life. We must not, by any means, misunderstand that.
David McculloughRead
Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called Life on a Little Known Planet. It's about insects. It will make you feel better.
David McculloughRead
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When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.
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A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one's vocabulary and the greater one's awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.
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