John D Rockefeller read his Bible religiously, but kept his ledger in a different drawer.

— H.W. Brands

J.P. Morgan learned to fish in troubled waters.

— H.W. Brands

Looking back on his adolescence from the vantage point of his mid-eighties, George H.W. Bush candidly admitted, "I might have been obsessed with bodies – boobs they are now called. But what seventeen-year-old kid was not? Guilty am I.

— H.W. Brands

Once information slipped the bonds of gravity and friction, it tended to gather where it was most valuable.

— H.W. Brands

One of George H. W. Bush's early teachers at Andover wrote, "At the moment he is intellectually immature for his powers of reasoning are not entirely developed.

— H.W. Brands

One with God is always a majority. But many have been burned at the stake while the boats were being counted. Thomas Reed

— H.W. Brands

Proving himself to himself was no small matter.

— H.W. Brands

Reagan is described as "delivering Barry Goldwater's doctrine with John F. Kennedy's technique.

— H.W. Brands

Reagan to son: how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn’t take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow, and you will know some very beautiful music.

— H.W. Brands

Shiloh showed him what he could ask of his men, and indeed what he MUST ask of them.

— H.W. Brands