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Quotes from John Taliaferro

Good luck belongs to those who know how and are not afraid." John Hay to President Theodore Roosevelt
~ John Taliaferro
John Hay indicates that dealing with people directly as a holder of political office "requires a stronger heart and a more obedient nervous system than I possess.
~ John Taliaferro
The author observes that the friendship of John Hay and Charles Francis Adams benefited from a physical distance that required correspondence, meaning that feelings only implied in person had to be explicitly expressed.
~ John Taliaferro
In Washington, the venerable were often vulnerable.
~ John Taliaferro
In this slipshod age, we need object lessons in language and thought. – Edith Wharton on an address by John Hay
~ John Taliaferro
When we get to Heaven, we can try a monarchy, perhaps." John Hay
~ John Taliaferro
I like to introduce myself, because THEN I can get in all the facts." The usually self-deprecating John Hay on the ironic formality of signing his own commission as Secretary of State.
~ John Taliaferro
Behind those thick glasses (of TR's) was a man who did not blink.
~ John Taliaferro
William Nelson Cromwell. Whether Beers went to the United
~ John Taliaferro
He did not so much follow his father's example as his father's vision.
~ John Taliaferro
The poet is poor, but the orator is made by cultivation." Horace
~ John Taliaferro
He found Washington at once august and disgusting.
~ John Taliaferro
He had no desire to grandstand for his country or himself.
~ John Taliaferro
John Hay on Lincoln: "He always worked with things as they were, while never relinquishing the desire to make them better.
~ John Taliaferro
The Admiral so regrets failure, he cannot THINK of success.
~ John Taliaferro
John Hay points to our our history of getting lost in suffering when, "so close together were pain and antidote.
~ John Taliaferro
Beaten armies always shout, "TREASON!
~ John Taliaferro
If he could be hard on kings and cabinets, he was invariably kind to his colleagues.
~ John Taliaferro
Because we have only one (life) we go about blundering along him nervous haste.
~ John Taliaferro
Henry Adams observes that John Hay has the ability to take the world as a whole rather than pulling it to pieces in criticism. He also observes that, in the routine of a stressful job, this perspective is challenged
~ John Taliaferro
My natural pessimism now works on Hay's natural pessimism until we are both quite out of our minds." Henry Adams
~ John Taliaferro