The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For by
David McCullough
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
This book, “The American Spirit: Who We are and What We Stand For” by David McCullough contains fifteen speeches that David McCullough has given through the years. The speeches explain a lot of history and are very inspiring. I’ve listed from the book just a few quotes below:
Perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages. ~George Washington
Speaking to the students at Union College in Schenectady, NY in 1994, McCullough says, “You have good minds, now go out and use them. Make a difference. There’s more opportunity than ever, more than you’ve any notion. I am of a generation raised on the idea that we as a people can do just about anything, we set our minds to. I still believe that. Let’s stop the mindless destruction of historic America. Let’s clean up our rivers and skies, and while we’re at it, let’s clean up our language – private and public and on the airwaves. Let’s stop the dumbing and degrading and cheap commercial exploitation of American life. Be generous - with your money, of course. But more important, give of yourself. Take an interest in people. Get to know people. Get to know what they’ve been through before you pass judgment. That’s essential. Read history. By all means read history. We are all where we are, each of us, because others helped.”
Speaking to the students at the University of Massachusetts in Boston in 1998, he says, “Nothing happens in isolation. Everything that happens has consequences.”
Speaking at Dartmouth College (Hanover, New Hampshire, 1999) he quotes Ronald Reagan who says, “How can we love our country and not love our countrymen? And loving them, reach out a hand when they fall, heal them when they’re sick, and provide opportunities to make them self-sufficient so they will be equal in fact and not just in theory.”
A speech at Hillsdale College (Hillsdale, Michigan, 2005) McCullough says, “Nor was there ever a self-made man or woman as much as we Americans love that expression. Everyone who’s ever lived has been affected, changed, shaped, helped, or hindered by others. We all know, in our own lives, who those people are who’ve opened a window, given us an idea, given us encouragement, given us a sense of direction, self-approval, self-worth, or who have straightened us out when we were on the wrong path. Most often they have been parents. Almost as often they have been teachers.”
At the same speech he quotes Margaret McFarland as saying, “attitudes aren’t taught, they’re caught. If the teacher has enthusiasm for the subject at hand, the student catches that, be it in second grade or graduate school.” She said, “Show them what you love.”
Still at Hillsdale he quotes John Adams letter to his wife Abigail when Adams wrote, “We can’t guarantee success [in this war] but we can do something better. We can deserve it.” McCullough research shows this quote was actually something Adams had read the play Cato by Joseph Addison.
A couple of more quotes from the Hillsdale speech. First, John Quincy Adams had to travel to France when he was 11 years old. Quincy was sacred and did not want to go. His Mom wrote him the following: “These are the times which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.” McCullough says “in other words, the mind itself isn’t enough. You have to have the heart.”
In this next quote it was reported the Quincy seemed overly enamored with himself and with his own opinions. So his Mom writes to him and says, “If you are conscious to yourself that you possess more knowledge upon some subjects than others of your standing, reflect that you have had greater opportunities of seeing the world and obtaining knowledge of mankind than any of your contemporaries. Thank you have never wanted a book, but it has been supplied to you. That your whole time has been spent in the company of men of literature and science. How unpardonable would it have been in you to have turned out a blockhead.” McCullough goes to say, “How unpardonable it would be for us – with so much that we have been given, the advantages we have, all the continuing opportunities we have to enhance and increase our love of learning – to turn out blockheads.
In McCullough speech in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 2013, he quotes JFK (the 50th Anniversary of honoring JFK) at length. This first quote is appropriate since this is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo project.
"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade, and to do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills; because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win." ~JFK
“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” ~JFK
“Those things we talk about today, which seem unreal, where so many people doubt that they can be done – the fact of the matter is, it has been true ll through our history – they will be done.” ~JFK
The very last speech in the book is to the U.S. Capitol Historical Society in Washington, DC, 2016. One last quote by McCullough. “little of consequence is ever accomplished alone. High achievement is nearly always a joint effort, as has been shown again and again in these halls when the leaders of different parties, representatives from differing constituencies and differing points of view, have been able, for the good of the country, to put those differences aside and work together.”
This is a great book I would recommend everyone to read.
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