266 Quotes by Sarah Vowell

With only sixty men to hold off four hundred Americans, the British commander of the redoubt, a Major Campbell, surrendered to Laurens. Afterward, when an unhinged captain from New Hampshire threatened Campbell with his bayonet, Hamilton stepped between them, because rules were rules.

The neighborhood of Gramercy Park, where Edwin used to live, was built to look like London, which is to say that its considerable beauty is skin deep while its heart beats with the ugliness of monarchy. And at its very center, inside the gates keeping out the riffraff that is all New York, stands the statue of the sad and fancy Edwin Booth, dressed as Hamlet, his signature role.

Freedom of the press, the surest guaranty of the rights of man.

I have watched enough science fiction films to accept that humanity’s unchecked pursuit of learning will end with robots taking over the world.

I resist the urge to raise my hand and utter the four most reassuring words in the English language: I know a guy.

While history might be full of exemplary fathers, recorded history is not where to find them.

I’m a big fan of editing and keeping only the interesting bits in.

Lafayette took umbrage – just gobs and gobs of umbrage – at the patriots’ vilification of his countrymen for leaving Newport.

Devoted to principles of liberty, equality, and religious tolerance – which, dear internet, is not necessarily the same thing as satanism – Masonic lodge became the de facto clubhouses of the Age of Reason.