Quotes from Doris Kearns Goodwin

My father was the best man I ever knew," Roosevelt later said. "He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness

With kindness, playfulness, wit, and wisdom, he would explain "things hard for us to understand by stories—maxims—tales and figures. He would almost always point his lesson or idea by some story that was plain and near as that we might instantly see the force & bearing of what he said." He understood early on that concrete examples and stories provided the best vehicles for teaching.

Roosevelt's irrepressible optimism, his tendency to expect the best outcome in any circumstance, provided the keystone strength that carried him through this traumatic experience.

Lincoln had talked individually with each member of his cabinet. His views were not subject to change; emancipation, he was certain, was indispensable to victory in the war. While Chase considered graduated emancipation by the generals a safer course, he was now "fully" satisfied, he told the president, "that you have given to every proposition which has been made, a kind and candid consideration.

Will wrote frequently to Nellie, describing his daily routine in detail only a lover would not find exhausting.

People will love him (Theodore Roosevelt) for the enemies he has made.

humility is the first and greatest of virtues.

be a wrong to me; and much worse, a wrong to the country." The standards

flour and lumber." The entire settlement consisted of a few hundred people, fifteen log cabins, a tavern, a church, a blacksmith, a schoolmaster, a preacher, and a

Though he "never conquered asthma completely," suffering spasms at irregular intervals for decades, he had strengthened his body sufficiently so that he could participate in a wide array of sports. He wrestled and sparred, ran three or four miles a day, took up rowing and tennis, and continued to work out in the gym. Though he failed to excel in any of these activities, he derived immense satisfaction from the sheer fact of overcoming his earlier invalidism.

If you spent two years in bed trying to wiggle your big toe, anything would seem easy!

Wherever a tension needed the solvent of good-will, or friction the oil of benevolence; wherever suspicion needed the antidote of frankness, or wounded pride the disinfectant of a hearty laugh—there Taft was sent.

we have a solemn responsibility to cooperate with the President and produce a program that is neither his blueprint nor our blueprint but a combination of the two.

we should look beyond our noses;

If he (Teddy Roosevelt) lacked Will Taft's immediate charisma, gradually his classmates could not resist the spell of his highly original personality.

Assume full responsibility for a pivotal decision.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition

Sam Parks was simply a paid agent for his union, receiving the same salary as an ordinary workman in his trade. In reality, Baker tracked him "riding about in his cab, wearing diamonds, appearing on the street with his blooded bulldog, supporting his fast horses, 'treating' his friends.

Lincoln always believed, he later said, that "if slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," and he could not remember when he did not "so think, and feel.

If he could not go out into the world, the world could come to him.

Understand the emotional needs of each member of the team.

The author writes that key FDR aide Harry Hopkins was in such poor health near the end of his boss's second term that one observer said he didn't know how Hopkins could possibly report to the president. But, at the onset of war and genuine national emergency, Hopkins was animated with a new sense of purpose.

Roosevelt had predicted during his final meeting with the press corps, "but not one who will interest you more.

Privilege can stunt ambition, just as the lack of privilege can fire ambition.