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.
David McculloughRead
And read… read all the time… read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect. Read as a nourishing staple of life.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading is essential for personal growth and self-respect.
David McCullough emphasizes the importance of reading as a fundamental activity that enriches our lives. He advocates for making reading a regular practice, suggesting that it is not just a leisure activity but a necessity for intellectual nourishment and self-improvement.
Themes
ReadingEducationSelf-RespectGrowthNourishment
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about lifelong learning, I quoted McCullough to inspire the audience to embrace reading.
More from David Mccullough
All quotes →There is only one person who can measure your success. That person is you.
David McculloughRead
I 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
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No graduation speaker will ever tell you that the future is anything but uncertain. It never is. But graduations need not only be obsessed with looking ahead; a graduation can be a day on which we turn back and trace our steps to see how we ended up where we are.
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The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.
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This is what I have learned: Any white person living in the United States will develop opinions about race simply by swimming in the water of our culture. But mainstream sources - schools, textbooks, media - don't provide us with the multiple perspectives we need.
Robin DiangeloRead