80 Quotes by Joseph J. Ellis

Washington's task was to transform the improbable into the inevitable.

...the very notion that a candidate should openly solicit votes violated the principled presumption that such behavior itself represented a confession of unworthiness for national office.

Grand visions, even those as prescient as Washington's, must nevertheless negotiate the damnable particularities that history in the short run tosses up before history in the long run arrives to validate the vision.

I'm one of those people that believes you should start writing before you think you're ready.

Men make history, but they can never know the history they are making.

Chronology, so the saying goes, is the last refuge of the feeble-minded and the only resort for historians.

Even in the best of lives, mistakes are made.

Honor mattered because character mattered. And character mattered because the fate of the American experiment with republican government still required virtuous leaders to survive.

I’m one of those people that believes you should start writing before you think you’re ready.