H. W. Brands

“America can change its presidents, but the world doesn't change.”

“A lot of people were ambivalent about Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson in 1964 positioned himself as the peace candidate. Once Johnson sent large amounts of troops into battle in 1965, most Americans were behind the war.”

“When you look at the development of the American presidency, you see that the presidents who have had the greatest impact are the ones who fit their times most successfully.”

“President Obama ran a campaign in 2008 that was entirely expected from a non-incumbent. You promise, and you imply that if you elect me, everything good is going to happen.”

“In revering the Founders, we undervalue ourselves and sabotage our own efforts to make improvements - necessary improvements - in the republican experiment they began.”

“I certainly don't think that the heirs of the American Revolution were a particularly noble class.”

“In the business arena, the standard rules of morality don't apply. What we're really looking for is efficiency. It doesn't do anyone any good to be nice to the weak. In a certain sense, competition is inefficient.”

“Every year, I have my graduate students read the great works of history, from classical times to the present. They gamely tackle Tacitus, ponder Plutarch, plow through Gibbon. Then they get to Thomas Carlyle and feel like Dorothy when she touched down in Technicolor Oz.”

“I read in all forms: paper, computer, phone, audio.”

“I'm often asked, 'Why didn't Benjamin Franklin ever become president?' My short, easy answer is: He died.”

“You might say presidents are drafting the first chapter of their memoirs in these seventh-year State of the Union addresses. They're trying to get the public and the media to think about their presidencies in the way that they would like to have them thought of.”

“I'm the farthest thing from a bibliophile. I purge my collection regularly: If I haven't read a book in a couple of years, I try to give it to someone who will.”

“A president can start a war under relatively specious circumstances, and once American soldiers are under fire, Americans will support the soldiers and support the president.”

“I had this grand plan for writing the history of the United States in six volumes. This was in the mid-1990s; I was fairly young and very ambitious. I pitched it to a publisher, who just laughed at me.”

“Love makes the most careful man wreckless.”

“I'm trying to tell the story of the evolution of America. Each biography is a life in time, and I can see there's a particular task for each generation that I write about.”

“Theodore Roosevelt, when he was out of office, he would do things to draw attention. But when you are president, you don't need to shout. When you are in office, you are the story.”

“In the academic world, biographies of these great figures of the past fell out of favor in the 1960s, when there was a turn toward social history, which meant the history of the voiceless and faceless. But the public at large never embraced the idea that these dead white guys should be abandoned.”

“The American political system is based on the president taking the initiative and Congress responding. With President Trump, it's been the opposite.”

“There is a certain kind of sobering, civilizing effect that being president imposes on people. There is a certain kind of dignity with which you comport yourself. As an observer of the presidency, I have to wonder if Trump would follow that pattern.”