The Pioneers Quotes

“Count the day lost at which the setting sun sees at its close no worthy action done.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Some serious Christians may possibly tremble for the Ark, and think the Christian religion in danger when divested of the patronage of civil power. They may fear inroads from licentiousness and infidelity, on the one hand, and from sectaries and party divisions on the other. But we may dismiss our fears, when we consider that truth can never be in real hazard, where there is a sufficiency of light and knowledge, and full liberty to vindicate it.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“to be useful, to be pleasant with our playmates, respectful to superiors, just to all, black or white, good to the poor not showing pride or selfishness but kindness and good will . . . and to see to it that we looked to our own, more than to others’ faults.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“he had every kind of sense but common sense.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“The sorrows of a mother are beyond all human consolation.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Asked how it was that he could do so much and accomplish so much, he said, “I’ve learned to use every one of all the odds and ends of the time.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“At home, the Barker children were being raised, as one daughter, Catherine, would remember, “to be useful, to be pleasant with our playmates, respectful to superiors, just to all, black or white, good to the poor not showing pride or selfishness but kindness and good will . . . and to see to it that we looked to our own, more than to others’ faults.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“But stiff-necked and somber he was not, any more than were most Puritans, contrary to latter-day misconceptions. Puritans were as capable as any mortals of exuding an affable enjoyment of life, as was he. Like many a Puritan he loved good food, good wine, a good story, and good cheer.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“On the matter of advancing age, he liked to say, “My sun is far past its meridian.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“If ignorance could be banished from our land, a real millennium would commence. —EPHRAIM CUTLER”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“American”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Besides cooking, baking, cleaning, and the full-time role of wife and mother, there were cows to milk, gardens to tend, candles and soap to be made, butter to churn. As would be said, “Working butter with wooden paddles in the large wooden bowl, molding it, and cleaning the pails and utensils was as much a part of women’s work as washing dishes.” Butter was a major element of the frontier diet and making good butter was a skill in which women took particular pride. Then there was yarn to spin, wool to weave, clothes to make for large families, clothes to wash, mend, and patch. And just as the man of the house had his ax, plowshare, long rifle, and those other tools necessary for the work to be faced, so, too, did the woman of the house—knives, needles, spoons, paddles, hickory brooms, spinning wheels, and most important, the bulbous, heavy iron pots to be seen in nearly every cabin that were used more for cooking than any other item and led to countless aching backs by the end of the day.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“The blacksmith was gunsmith, farrier, coppersmith, millwright, machinist, and surgeon general to all broken tools and implements. His forge was a center of social as well as industrial activity. From soft bar iron, nails as well as horse shoes were forged as needed. . . . Chains, reaping hooks, bullet molds, yoke rings, axes, bear and wolf traps, hoes, augers, bells, saws, and the metal parts of looms, spinning wheels, sausage grinders, presses and agricultural implements were a few of the items either manufactured or repaired in his shop.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“In the words of a Wyandot named Turk, “No one in particular can justly claim this [land]; it belongs in common to us all; no earthly being has an exclusive right to it. The Great Spirit above is the true and only owner of this soil; and He has given us all an equal right to it.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“It may be emphatically said that a new Empire has sprung into existence, and that there is a new thing under the sun. By the Constitution now established in the United States, religious as well as civil liberty is secured. Some serious Christians may possibly tremble for the Ark, and think the Christian religion in danger when divested of the patronage of civil power. They may fear inroads from licentiousness and infidelity, on the one hand, and from sectaries and party divisions on the other. But we may dismiss our fears, when we consider that truth can never be in real hazard, where there is a sufficiency of light and knowledge, and full liberty to vindicate it.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“As another notable veteran, Joseph Barker, who was to follow later, would write, they had had “a second education in the Army of the Revolution, where they heard the precept of wisdom and saw the example of bravery and fortitude. They had been disciplined to obey, and learned the advantage of subordination to law and good order in promoting the prosperity and happiness of themselves and the rest of mankind.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“necessary provisions—flour, beans, pork, venison hams, bread, butter, and salt.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“The oldest of the party, William Moulton, a goldsmith from New Hampshire, was sixty-seven, while two others beside Jervis Cutler were still in their teens,”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“What Franklin wanted most to show his accomplished guest was a large volume on botany, “which, indeed,” wrote Cutler, “afforded me the greatest pleasure of any one thing in his library.” The book was so large that only with great difficulty was Franklin able to raise it from a low shelf and lift it onto a table. But as it often was with old people, wrote Cutler, “he insisted on doing it himself, and would permit no person to assist him, merely to show us how much strength he had remaining.” As Cutler’s father could still help bring in the hay, so the great doctor could still bring to the table weighty works of the mind.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Such is the present state of things in this country, that we have just ground to hope that religion and learning, the useful and ornamental branches of science, will meet with encouragement, and that they will be extended to the remotest parts of the American empire. . . . Here we behold a country vast in extent, mild in its climate, exuberant in its soil, and favorable to the enjoyment of life. . . . Here may the Gospel be preached to the latest period of time; the arts and sciences be planted; the seeds of virtue, happiness, and glory be firmly rooted and grow up to full maturity.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“He was not brilliant, he was not quick, but he was richly endowed with that best of gifts—good, sound, common sense, and he had, in unusual degree, that prescience that enabled him to skillfully adapt means to ends, so as thereby to accomplish what he wished. . . . His judgment was sound, he was patient and had great power of endurance. His integrity was never questioned.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Fortunate is he who understands the cause of things.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“the setting sun sees at its close no worthy action done.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“American ideals in a way nothing yet had, and was passed even before the Constitution. It guaranteed, in the first article, freedom of religion. The third article stated the need for education, and in the sixth article, most important of all, it declared there would be no slavery. Until then, despite the claim that “all men are created equal,” slavery continued throughout all of the thirteen states. Now, in five new states, a territory as large as the original thirteen, there was to be no slavery.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“They accomplished what they had set out to do not for money, not for possessions or fame, but to advance the quality and opportunities of life—to propel as best they could the American ideals.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Consumption of hard liquor per capita by the 1820s had reached five gallons per year, the highest ever and at that same time”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“Until that point the United States government did not own a single acre of land. Now, all at once, almost unimaginably, it had acquired some 265,878 square miles of unbroken wilderness, thus doubling the size of the United States.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“At the peace treaty ending the war, signed in Paris in 1783, the American diplomats John Adams and John Jay had insisted that all the lands controlled by the British west of the Allegheny Mountains and northwest of the Ohio River east of the Mississippi, be ceded to the new United States.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West

“17 General Arthur St. Clair, whose little knowledge of or interest in Indians, combined with notably poor judgment, led to one of the worst defeats ever of the American army in a battle by the Wabash River on November 4, 1791, to be known only as St. Clair’s Defeat.”
― David McCullough, The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West