Founders' Son Quotes

“A storyteller, a displaced poet, will absorb reading differently.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln began to emerge from his funk by helping a coworker who looked up to him out of a funk of his own.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln admitted his infirmities to make way for his spring.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Since we never get everything we want or need from our families, we look for sufficiency in surrogates.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“It was as simple as walking and as hard as walking on with so far gone and so far yet to go.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“One of the highest marks of citizenship is fighting for the common defense.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln learned to summon the passions, but he never addressed his audience as sweethearts.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln bore down or anything he handled, mastering both the details and the principles.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Most principles are limp until they are tested.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Young, healthy communities can afford to roll the dice.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Any man's life can be seen as a series of engagements with his fathers, Including the surrogates provided by life and literature.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln was a master of small group theatrics.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Inspiring words are potent, and sometimes dangerous, things. They can inspire idiots and devils as well as great man.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Moderation was the effect of congenital optimism. Why push too hard at an open door?”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln loved other people's jokes as much as his own.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Literature offered a safe circumscribed outlet for sadness.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“To use the past, he had to save it from aspects of itself.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“As with almost every long oration, there were loose ends.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“She became at once more intimate and more exalted.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“God produced great writing, a matter of first importance to a man like Lincoln, ever impressed with the nature of cause and forces.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln Road that sorrow is most difficult for the young because it, "takes them unawares." The old, he said, have learned to anticipate difficulty. Lincoln wrote that sorrow is most difficult for the young because it, "takes them unawares." The old, he said, have learned to anticipate difficulty.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Dominance can be a tempration to division. "There are so many of us, we can afford to fight amongst ourselves.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“The lightheaded and the fashionable are always willing to shed tears for distant underdogs.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“He might not take their advice, but he took their temperature.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“The towering genius is not apolitical.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Jefferson could strike up the band even when he was being lazy or fearful.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln was less well-read than many a professor or journalist, but what he read, he read deeply.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Lincoln had a stubborn concern for first principles.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Good politicians know when to move on, sooner or later.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

“Honesty is a good thing, but it comes in different flavors. Honesty about our feelings is sincerity. Honesty about our intentions is candor. But suppose our feelings or intentions are childish or evil. What then do we gain by expressing or allowing them? The most important form of honesty, especially in a leader, is determining the right course of action and forthrightly pursuing it.”
― Richard Brookhiser, Founders' Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln