David Hackett Fischer · 564 pages
Rating: (11.8K votes)
“Until Washington crossed the Delaware, the triumph of the old order seemed inevitable. Thereafter, things would never be the same again.”
― David Hackett Fischer, quote from Washington's Crossing
“Americans tended to think of war as something that had to be done from time to time, for a particular purpose or goal. They fought not for the sake of fighting but for the sake of winning.”
― David Hackett Fischer, quote from Washington's Crossing
“It was typical of Washington’s style of leadership to present a promising proposal as someone else’s idea, rather than his own.”
― David Hackett Fischer, quote from Washington's Crossing
“These are the times that try men’s souls,” Paine began. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
― David Hackett Fischer, quote from Washington's Crossing
“Thus the fate of entire Kingdoms often depends upon a few blockheads and irresolute men.”43”
― David Hackett Fischer, quote from Washington's Crossing
“The truth of the matter is that—by an exorbitant paradox—I never stop believing that I am loved. I hallucinate what I desire. Each wound proceeds less from a doubt than from a betrayal: for only the one who loves can betray, only the one who believes himself loved can be jealous: that the other, episodically, should fail in his being, which is to love me—that is the origin of all my woes. A delirium, however, does not exist unless one wakens from it(there are only retrospective deliriums): one day, I realize what has happened to me: I thought I was suffering from not being loved, and yet it is because I thought I was loved that I was suffering; I lived in the complication of supposing myself simultaneously loved and abandoned. Anyone hearing my intimate language would have had to exclaim, as of a difficult child: But after all, what does he want?”
― Roland Barthes, quote from A Lover's Discourse: Fragments
“He needs the Lord, but I think right now God scares him.” Jim exhaled hard. “As if he knows God’s chasing him, and he’s determined to run until he hits a brick wall.”
― Karen Kingsbury, quote from Reunion
“The dining table was a plain board called by that name. It was hung on the wall when not in use, and was perched on the diners' knees when food was served. Over time, the word board came to signify not just the dining surface but the meal itself, which is where the board comes from in room and board. It also explains why lodgers are called boarders.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from At Home: A Short History of Private Life
“But God also helped those who helped themselves, and presumably expected the chosen to bring warm clothing, water purification tablets, basic medication, a weapon such as the bronze knives that were selling so well these days, possibly a tent – in short, to bring some common sense to the party.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from The Long Earth
“Crying is no use, you know. We never cry, even though we aren’t men yet, like you”
― Ágota Kristóf, quote from The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie: Three Novels
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