Quotes from Doris Kearns Goodwin

If a person focused too much on a future that could not be controlled, he would become, Roosevelt acknowledged, too "careful, calculating, cautious in word and act.

Within the coming decade alone, three signal amendments would be added to the Constitution: the Sixteenth, giving the national government the power to levy a progressive income tax, without which many of the New Deal's social programs might not have been possible; the Seventeenth, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators; and the Nineteenth, finally granting American women the right to vote.

That very afternoon, Taft fell seriously ill with what doctors mistakenly diagnosed as dengue fever. He remained bedridden for ten days, and when he returned to work, severe rectal pain prevented him from sitting. At the same time, a fungal infection developed in his groin.

It is my greatest hope that the story that follows will guide readers through their own process of discovery toward a better understanding of what it takes to summon the public to demand the actions necessary to bring our country closer to its ancient ideals. "There is no one left," McClure exhorted his readers as he cast about for a remedy to America's woes at the turn of the twentieth century, "none but all of us.

It may be that 'the voice of the people is the voice of God' in fifty one cases out of a hundred; but in the remaining forty nine it is quite as likely to be the voice of the devil, or, what is still worse, the voice of a fool.

The generation gap is just another way of saying that the younger generation makes overt what is covert in the older generation; the child expresses openly what the parent represses."36 There was in the

Mack turned to the real reason for dropping by—to sound out Franklin on the possibility of running for an Assembly seat from the district that included Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park, the village where Roosevelt had grown up and where his mother still lived.

Scholars who have studied the development of leaders have situated resilience, the ability to sustain ambition in the face of frustration, at the heart of potential leadership growth.

That Mack and Perkins considered Franklin the best choice had little to do with their perception that the young law clerk had within him the makings of a leader. The key to their interest lay in the resonance of the Roosevelt name in Republican circles.

Act like you're talking to those folks," he counseled his students. "Look one of them in the eye and then move on and look another one in the eye." During competitions, he utilized all his supple array of gestures and facial expressions to cue and prompt—now frowning, narrowing his eyes, creasing his brow, shaking his head, gaping in wonder—creating a silent movie to steer and goad his charges to victory.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are

beneath Lincoln's tenderness and kindness, he was without question the most complex, ambitious, willful, and implacable leader of them all.

We have but a short life to live here my dear friend. But let us make it long by noble deeds.

I have always had a horror of words that are not translated into deeds," Roosevelt frequently charged.

the leading rule for the lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence. Leave nothing for tomorrow that can be done to-day." The key to success, he insisted, is "work, work, work.

talk about their work, their families, their lives. He had always loved to talk, but now he learned to listen, and to listen intently, his head nodding in a welcoming way, with an air of sympathetic identification, an attentive posture and manner that would become a lifelong characteristic.

Republican Robert La Follette of Wisconsin had defied the machine to become governor by waging "war on the railroads that ruled his state.

At last, the crowd composed itself enough for Roosevelt to speak. "At present," he began, "both the old parties are controlled by professional politicians in the interests of the privileged classes." Together, they would forge a new Progressive Party, based on "the right of the people to rule.

To answer those who asked if Lincoln would reconsider, Douglass gave an emphatic no. "Abraham Lincoln will take no step backward," he insisted. "If he has taught us to confide in nothing else, he has taught us to confide in his word.

What is clear is that at some point my father determined he would write the story of his life himself, rather than let it be written for him by his tortured past. And this resolve was the greatest gift he bequeathed to his children.

every man to read the history of his country, "to appreciate the value of our free institutions," to treasure literature and the scriptures

Clay had been able, decade after decade, to quell rancor and bring opposing parties together in compromise. Time and again, he resisted "extremes of opinion" in both North and South. "Whatever he did, he did for the whole country.

A five minute speech," he pointed out, "with fifteen minutes spent afterward is much more effective than a fifteen minute speech, no matter how inspiring, that leaves only five minutes for handshaking.

He would blanket someone with generosity, care, and affection, but in recompense, expect total loyalty and sterling achievement. Failing this standard was perceived by him as a betrayal. His affection would be withdrawn, a pattern of behavior so pronounced it earned the epithet, the Johnson "freeze-out.