Joseph J. Ellis

“The founders were not gods. They were men, with all the flaws and frailties that implies.”

“The silent majority is silent because it has nothing to say.”

“The great paradox of the American Revolution is that the very principles that drove it forward also contained the seeds of its own undoing.”

“They were imperfect men, living in an imperfect world, trying to build a more perfect union.”

“History is a conversation and sometimes a shouting match between present and past, though often the voices we most want to hear are barely audible.”

“The American Revolution was a messy, ambiguous, and contradictory affair.”

“We are all creatures of our own time, and the best we can do is to try to understand that time in its own terms.”

“The past is not a foreign country. It's an undiscovered country.”

“Friendship in politics is a myth.”

“To be a historian is to be a storyteller. The facts are your script, but you are the director.”

“What Jefferson was saying was, 'Look, you know, we're all created equal in the sense that we're all entitled to a shot at the starting line.'”

“The Constitution is a living document, but that does not mean it is infinitely malleable.”

“American history is a story of contradictions.”

“History is not a morality play. It's a tragedy.”

“For the founding generation, the political and the personal were deeply intertwined.”