Quotes from Stacy Schiff

But what does it avail to find fault with what is past

Adams left the floor to Virginia, proud men from the most populous colony, one that shared New England's views but not its reputation for fire-breathing fanaticism. (John Adams would later claim that this was the reason Washington commanded the army, Jefferson wrote the Declaration, and Richard Henry Lee proposed it.)

With each effort to suppress the spirit of liberty, Great Britain managed only to promote it.

There were as many reasons to accuse someone of witchcraft in 1692 as there were to denounce him under the Nazi occupation of France; envy, insecurity, political enmity, unrequited love, love that had run its course.

The truth is smudged forever by Roman manhandling. (218)

The censure of fools or knaves," he would remind his wife, "is applause.

Believe me there's no spiteful stupidity, no horror, no absurd story that one can't get the idle-minded folk of a great city to swallow if one goes the right way about it—

Make a list of pros and cons and allow it to marinate for a few days. Gradually jettison the entries that equal each other—canceling out multiple arguments that amount to a single one in weight—and endorse the column in which a balance remains.

Samuel Adams was the kind of man you like to believe exists and rarely meet.

Dryly he noted that some individuals enjoyed every political gift except that of discretion.)

Franklin informed his caller that the colonies understood precisely what they were doing, "for we know that separated both countries must become weak; but there is this difference, Great Britain will always remain weak; America after a time, will grow strong.

in the absence of facts, myth rushes in

It was an odd thing about Boston, Crown officials observed. A confidential, early-morning insinuation could blossom into common knowledge by evening. Yet when 342 crates of tea immersed themselves in water, no one had seen a thing.

Let the people keep a watchful eye over the conduct of their rulers," he explained, "for we are told that great men are not at all times wise. It would be indeed a wonder if in any age or country they were always honest.

her history written by her enemies

To understand why the new president hoped to channel Adams's spirit is to discover not only where a daring revolutionary came from but where a revolution did.

To restore Cleopatra is as much to salvage the few facts as to peel away the encrusted myth and the hoary propaganda.

He was unflinching, but touched too on his secret weapon, one especially valuable in 1771: "The opinion of others," he assured his former father-in-law, "I very little regard.

Thomas Hutchinson observed: "Power, once acquired, is seldom voluntarily parted with.

Adams elaborated. "Power is intoxicating," he wrote, "and those who are possessed of it too often grow vain and insolent.

When men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge which they may apply usefully for their country; but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret; their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects; and they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home. —Thomas Jefferson

In Europe pedigree might be all, "but it is a commodity that cannot be carried to a worse market than to that of America, where people do not enquire concerning a stranger, what is he? but what can he do?

Charcot's drawings of convulsing hysterics agree in every detail with the scenes that left Deodat Lawson reeling.

I will stand alone. I will oppose tyranny at the threshold, though the fabric of liberty fall and I perish in its ruins.