I believe history will come to view 9/11 as an event on par with November 22, 1963, the date on which John F. Kennedy was murdered, cutting short a presidency that was growing ever more promising. Dreams died that day in Dallas; it is easy to imagine the 1960s turning out rather differently had President Kennedy lived.

— Jon Meacham

If a person is homosexual by nature - that is, if one's sexuality is as intrinsic a part of one's identity as gender or skin color - then society can no more deny a gay person access to the secular rights and religious sacraments because of his homosexuality than it can reinstate Jim Crow.

— Jon Meacham

In America, now, let us - Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, Wiccan, whatever - fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one's enemies. A tall order, that - perhaps the tallest of all.

— Jon Meacham

In the closed circle of the war cabinet, pounded by terrible report after terrible report, there had been uncertainty about whether he could fend off the drift to exploring a deal with Hitler. The determination of the larger group trumped the tentativeness of the smaller, and Churchill fulfilled his role as leader by disentangling himself from defeatism--one of his singular achievements at the end of May 1940.

— Jon Meacham

Jackson lead as he lived, sometimes with his heart, sometimes with his mind, sometimes with both.

— Jon Meacham

Jefferson was ambivalent about executive power – until he bore executive responsibility.

— Jon Meacham

Jefferson was the rare leader who stood out from the crowd without intimidating it.

— Jon Meacham

No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty.

— Jon Meacham

Politics was at once clinical and human, driven by principles and passions that he (the leader) had to master and harness for the good of the whole.

— Jon Meacham

Religious belief, like history itself, is a story that is always unfolding, always subject to inquiry and ripe for questioning. For without doubt there is no faith.

— Jon Meacham