57 Quotes by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Every President reconstructs the Presidency to meet his own psychological needs.

The only President who clearly died of overwork was Polk, and that was a long time ago. Hoover, who worked intensely and humorlessly as President, lived for more than thirty years after the White House; Truman, who worked intensely and gaily, lived for twenty

I trust that a graduate student some day will write a doctoral essay on the influence of the Munich analogy on the subsequent history of the twentieth century. Perhaps in the end he will conclude that the multitude of errors committed in the name of Munich may exceed the original error of 1938.

The very discovery of the New world was the by-product of a dietary quest.

Man generally is entangled in insoluble problems; history is consequently a tragedy in which we are all involved, whose keynote is anxiety and frustration, not progress and fulfilment.

People who claw their way to the top are not likely to find very much wrong with the system that enabled them to rise.

Troubles impending always seem worse than troubles surmounted, but this does not prove that they really are.

Righteousness is easy in retrospect.

Total separation of church and state was considered the best safeguard for the health of each. As [Andrew] Jackson explained, in refusing to name a fast day, he feared to 'disturb the security which religion now enjoys in this country, in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.'