Joseph J. Ellis
Joseph J. Ellis
Joseph John Ellisis an American historian and professor whose work focuses on the lives and times of the founders of the United States of America. American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson won a National Book Award and Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for History. Both these books were bestsellers...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
reader
I would say readers can trust my work more than anyone else's.
character clinton history primal respected testify urge witnesses
It is as if Clinton had called one of the most respected character witnesses in all of U.S. history to testify that the primal urge has a most distinguished presidential pedigree.
believe men honorable-man
I believe I am an honorable man.
self fire serenity
Some models of self-control are able to achieve their serenity easily because the soul fires never burn brightly to begin with.
thank-you son wife
To my three sons, Peter, Scott, and Alexander who pulled me from the 18th Century and back into the present on a regular basis and therefore made me a better person, thank you. And to my wife, who sits at the table there. Who is right about almost everything.
penance kind sin
And the only thing to do with a sin is to confess, do penance and then, after some kind of decent interval, ask for forgiveness.
regret circles want
I deeply regret having let stand and later confirming the assumption that I went to Vietnam. For this and any other distortions about my personal life, I want to apologize to my family, friends, colleagues and students. Beyond that circle, however, I shall have no further comment.
pride failing
Because he could not afford to fail, he could not afford to trust.
tasks inevitable improbable
Washington's task was to transform the improbable into the inevitable.
office vote behavior
...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.
running long vision
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.
believe writing thinking
I'm one of those people that believes you should start writing before you think you're ready.
men knows
Men make history, but they can never know the history they are making.
history lasts resorts
Chronology, so the saying goes, is the last refuge of the feeble-minded and the only resort for historians.