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" In some ways, I would be absolutely fascinated if Trump gets elected. "
H. W. Brands
Trump
Some
Absolutely
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" When people think of the oil industry, they think of Rockefeller, much like when people think of the software industry, they think of Bill Gates. "
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" I've probably written some books - I know I've written some books that were more interesting to me than to a large audience, but that was mostly when I was first getting started in academia and writing for a narrow audience. "
H. W. Brands
Know
Audience
Interesting
" 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. "
H. W. Brands
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" It's not an exaggeration to say that Texas gets a lot more out of being part of the United States than the United States gets out of having Texas as one of the states. "
H. W. Brands
Say
United States
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" 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. "
H. W. Brands
Try
Someone
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" The historic dearth of labor was perhaps the central feature of the American economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. "
H. W. Brands
Perhaps
Labor
Economy
" Harry Truman's decision to fire Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War in April 1951 shocked the American political system and astonished the world. Much of the world didn't realize the president had the power to fire a five-star general; much of America didn't realize Truman had the nerve. "
H. W. Brands
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" Once you become president, you don't even have to stop for red lights. And if it looks like traffic's too bad, you just take a helicopter. "
H. W. Brands
Bad
You
Traffic
" In the early 19th to the early 20th century, people had a lot of things wrong with them. Doctors didn't know how to fix them, and so they lived with them. "
H. W. Brands
Know
Early
Fix
" 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. "
H. W. Brands
Dignity
People
Wonder
" 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. "
H. W. Brands
Need
Office
Story
" I've been writing big stories of history, but there are a lot of fascinating little stories. "
H. W. Brands
Stories
Writing
Little
" When you're actually president, the spin matters a lot less. "
H. W. Brands
President
Spin
Less
" 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. "
H. W. Brands
Down
Present
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" To me, the puzzle of Ronald Reagan is how a comparatively ordinary man, someone with not extraordinary talent, accomplished such extraordinary results. At the age of 50, no one expected that this was going to be the guy who would become, at least in my interpretation, one of the two most important presidents of the 20th century. "
H. W. Brands
Talent
Man
Age
" If the incumbent or his party has been discredited sufficiently, the challenger can run a successful, content-free campaign. "
H. W. Brands
Run
Been
Campaign
" Booker Washington was branded an accommodationist by many of the people who criticized him. "
H. W. Brands
Who
Washington
People
" There has always been interest in certain phases and aspects of history - military history is a perennial bestseller, the Civil War, that sort of thing. But I think that there is a lot of interest in historical biography and what's generally called narrative history: history as story-telling. "
H. W. Brands
War
Think
Always
" The candidate who promises the most has the best chance of winning. "
H. W. Brands
Best
Winning
Promises
" When a president doesn't know the policy, it doesn't make for a very effective leader. "
H. W. Brands
Leader
Make
Policy
" President Trump is doing what he can to act decisively. And if there's one thing most people have in mind in distinguishing the business world from the political world is that the CEO of a business can act decisively. "
H. W. Brands
World
Political
People
" For Andrew Jackson, politics was very personal. He hated not just the federal debt. He hated debt at all. "
H. W. Brands
Debt
Politics
Hated
" When you tell a story, there are imperatives of structure, of style, of pacing and all of this, that are there simply because you want to make it a good story. When do you introduce your characters? When do you put them onstage, when do you take them off the stage? How do you weave the different threads of the narrative together? "
H. W. Brands
Good
You
Want
" Our love for the Founders leads us to abandon, and even to betray, the very principles they fought for. "
H. W. Brands
Abandon
Us
Our Love
" I'm often asked, 'Why didn't Benjamin Franklin ever become president?' My short, easy answer is: He died. "
H. W. Brands
Become
Easy
President
" I was raised in, and presumably to, the cutlery business. I really didn't think that that's what I wanted to do for a career. But I felt a certain obligation to give it a try. "
H. W. Brands
Think
Business
Give
" He used humor more effectively than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Reagan was not an especially warm person, but he appeared to be. Many people disliked his policies, but almost no one disliked him. "
H. W. Brands
People
Humor
Him
" In the early days of the republic, the secretary of state was the heir apparent to the president. Presidents could easily hand-pick their party's next candidate. The party caucuses formally selected the candidates, but presidents guided the process. "
H. W. Brands
Republic
Early
Days
" I've been writing American history for a long time, and I've had a hard time finding strong, interesting female characters. There are women, of course, in American history, but they're hard to write about because they don't leave much of a historical trace, and they're not usually involved in high-profile public events. "
H. W. Brands
Writing
Women
History
" 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. "
H. W. Brands
World
Past
History