It’s the human desire in all of us to want to make life better for somebody else. It makes you feel larger. It makes you feel part of the whole human race. And if you can make that transition in even a small way, and then it becomes larger and larger, it’s something that deepens you as a person. It’s a much better source of ambition than just for self.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Mental health, contemporary psychiatrists tell us, consists of the ability to adapt to the inevitable stresses and misfortunes of life. It does not mean freedom from anxiety and depression, but only the ability to cope with these afflictions in a healthy way.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Most of the time, success in the world depends on collaborating with other people. And learning how to do that, learning how to listen, learning how to treat people with respect and with dignity, learning how to be humble … those are the human qualities we all need in our everyday life.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Good leadership requires you to surround yourself with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree with you without fear of retaliation.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Adversity does, I think, allow a person to grow, to feel more empathy, to feel wisdom, and more importantly, to feel perspective.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Topics: Adversity
To be a historian is to discover the facts in context, to discover what things mean, to lay before the reader your reconstruction of time, place, mood, to empathize even when you disagree. You read all the relevant material, you synthesize all the books, you speak to all the people you can, and then you write down what you known about the period. You feel you own it.
—Doris Kearns Goodwin
Topics: History
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Henry Adams American Historian
- Howard Zinn American Historian, Activist
- Joan Didion American Essayist, Novelist, Memoirist
- Studs Terkel American Oral Historian
- Richard Neustadt American Historian
- Herbert Hoover American Statesman
- Cynthia Ozick American Novelist, Essayist
- Richard Eyre British Director
- Ted Sorensen American Lawyer, Speechwriter
- John Hope Franklin American Historian
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