Doris Kearns Goodwin > Quotes

“Though [Abraham Lincoln] never would travel to Europe, he went with Shakespeare’s kings to Merry England; he went with Lord Byron poetry to Spain and Portugal. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Once a president gets to the White House, the only audience that is left that really matters is history.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin

“Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country - bigger than all the Presidents together.

We are still too near to his greatness,' (Leo) Tolstoy (in 1908) concluded, 'but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.' (748)”
― doris kearns goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“An adult friend of Lincoln's: "Life was to him a school.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“In order to “win a man to your cause,” Lincoln explained, you must first reach his heart, “the great high road to his reason.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“I liked the thought that the book I was now holding had been held by dozens of others.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Wait Till Next Year

“This, then, is a story of Lincoln’s political genius revealed through his extraordinary array of personal qualities that enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him; to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes. He possessed an acute understanding of the sources of power inherent in the presidency, an unparalleled ability to keep his governing coalition intact, a tough-minded appreciation of the need to protect his presidential prerogatives, and a masterful sense of timing.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“Having hope,” writes Daniel Goleman in his study of emotional intelligence, “means that one will not give in to overwhelming anxiety, a defeatist attitude, or depression in the face of difficult challenges or setbacks.” Hope is “more than the sunny view that everything will turn out all right”; it is “believing you have the will and the way to accomplish your goals.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition,” he wrote. “I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“Tolstoy went on to observe,"This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skillful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.
"Washington was a typical American. Naopoleon was a typical Frenchmen, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country--- bigger than all the Presidents t,ogether. We are still too near to his greatness, " Tolstoy concluded, "but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when it's light beams directly on us.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“Mental health, contemporary psychiatrists tell us, consists of the ability to adapt to the inevitable stresses and misfortunes of life. It does not mean freedom from anxiety and depression, but only the ability to cope with these afflictions in a healthy way.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“A real democracy would be a meritocracy where those born in the lower ranks could rise as far as their natural talents and discipline might take them.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“In 1908, in a wild and remote area of the North Caucasus, Leo Tolstoy, the greatest writer of the age, was the guest of a tribal chief “living far away from civilized life in the mountains.” Gathering his family and neighbors, the chief asked Tolstoy to tell stories about the famous men of history. Tolstoy told how he entertained the eager crowd for hours with tales of Alexander, Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon. When he was winding to a close, the chief stood and said, “But you have not told us a syllable about the greatest general and greatest ruler of the world. We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock….His name was Lincoln and the country in which he lived is called America, which is so far away that if a youth should journey to reach it he would be an old man when he arrived. Tell us of that man.”
“I looked at them,” Tolstoy recalled, “and saw their faces all aglow, while their eyes were burning. I saw that those rude barbarians were really interested in a man whose name and deeds had already become a legend.” He told them everything he knew about Lincoln’s “home life and youth…his habits, his influence upon the people and his physical strength.” When he finished, they were so grateful for the story that they presented him with “a wonderful Arabian horse.” The next morning, as Tolstoy prepared to leave, they asked if he could possibly acquire for them a picture of Lincoln. Thinking that he might find one at a friend’s house in the neighboring town, Tolstoy asked one of the riders to accompany him. “I was successful in getting a large photograph from my friend,” recalled Tolstoy. As he handed it to the rider, he noted that the man’s hand trembled as he took it. “He gazed for several minutes silently, like one in a reverent prayer, his eyes filled with tears.”
Tolstoy went on to observe, “This little incident proves how largely the name of Lincoln is worshipped throughout the world and how legendary his personality has become. Now, why was Lincoln so great that he overshadows all other national heroes? He really was not a great general like Napoleon or Washington; he was not such a skilful statesman as Gladstone or Frederick the Great; but his supremacy expresses itself altogether in his peculiar moral power and in the greatness of his character.
“Washington was a typical American. Napoleon was a typical Frenchman, but Lincoln was a humanitarian as broad as the world. He was bigger than his country—bigger than all the Presidents together.
“We are still too near to his greatness,” Tolstoy concluded, “but after a few centuries more our posterity will find him considerably bigger than we do. His genius is still too strong and too powerful for the common understanding, just as the sun is too hot when its light beams directly on us.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, 仁者无敌：林肯的政治天才

“Lincoln's ability to retain his emotional balance in such difficult situations was rooted in actute self-awareness and an enormous capacity to dispel anxiety in constructive ways.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“We do not have to become heroes overnight,” Eleanor once wrote. “Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, No ordinary time : Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt : the home front in World War II

“As he had done so many times before, Lincoln withstood the storm of defeat by replacing anguish over an unchangeable past with hope in an uncharted future.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, 仁者无敌：林肯的政治天才

“(Lincoln reflecting on) George Washington's words: “It is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prospertiy. Washington advised vigilance against “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed,” Abigail Adams wrote to her son John Quincy Adams in the midst of the American Revolution, suggesting that “the habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership: In Turbulent Times

“(from John Hay's diary) “The President never appeared to better advantage in the world,” Hay proudly noted in his diary. “Though He knows how immense is the danger to himself from the unreasoning anger of that committee, he never cringed to them for an instant. He stood where he thought he was right and crushed them with his candid logic.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“It is surprising,” Roosevelt explained, “how much reading a man can do in time usually wasted.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“Moreover, Lincoln possessed an uncanny understanding of his shifting moods, a profound self-awareness that enabled him to find constructive ways to alleviate sadness and stress. Indeed, when he is compared with his colleagues, it is clear that he possessed the most even-tempered disposition of them all.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“And Lincoln, as would be evidenced throughout his presidency, was a master of timing.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“More and more it seems to me that about the best thing in life is to have a piece of work worth doing and then to do it well.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership: In Turbulent Times

“Lincoln had internalized the pain of those around him—the wounded soldiers, the captured prisoners, the defeated Southerners. Little wonder that he was overwhelmed at times by a profound sadness that even his own resilient temperament could not dispel.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“Simon Cameron: “I loved my brother, as only the poor and lonely can love those with whom they have toiled and struggled up the rugged hill of life’s success—but he died bravely in the discharge of his duty.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

“Unlike depression, melancholy does not have a specific cause. It is an aspect of temperament, perhaps genetically based. One may emerge from the hypo, as Lincoln did, but melancholy is an indelible part of one's nature.”
― Doris Kearns Goodwin, 仁者无敌：林肯的政治天才