"From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affection and enormous hostility. We'll all be much saner, I think, if we remember that history is full of surprises and things that seemed absolutely certain one day are often unimaginable the next.“

-Jon Meacham

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Jon Meacham quote about history: "From Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to FDR to Reagan, every great president inspires enormous affec..."

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"The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction. That great enemy of democratic capitalism, economic inequality, is real and growing."

-Jon Meacham

"The problem for those who assert biblical authority in support of traditional definitions of marriage is that one could, with equal validity, assert that the lending of money or certain kinds of haircuts are forbidden by God, or that slavery and the subjugation of women are authorized by the Lord."

-Jon Meacham

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"Only the most unapologetic biblical fundamentalists, for instance, take every biblical injunction literally. If we all took all scripture at the same level of authority, then we would be more open to slavery, to the subjugation of women, to wider use of stoning. Jesus himself spoke out frequently against divorce in the strongest of terms."

-Jon Meacham

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"The fact is that America has been at her most prosperous when government and the private sector have been not at war, but in a wary, if often underplayed, alliance. History is unmistakable on this point."

-Jon Meacham

"World War II ended the Great Depression with one of the great public-private industrial collaborations in the history of man."

-Jon Meacham

"Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for Democratic Presidents: if it didn't work for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four terms and a World War, it probably won't work for you either."

-Jon Meacham

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"Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers."

-Carlos Fuentes

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"If I had been elected president in 1948, history would be vastly different. I believe we would have stemmed the growth of Big Government, which had begun with the New Deal and culminated with the Great Society."

-Strom Thurmond

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"For most of our history, Americans enjoyed both liberty and security from foreign threats."

-Harry Browne

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"There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history. It is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations."

-Claude Vorilhon

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"This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?"

-Azar Nafisi

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"What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history."

-Barney Frank

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