Shelby Foote Quotes

Grant was something rare in that or any war. He could learn from experience.

~ Shelby Foote

A visitor asked Lincoln what good news he could take home from an audience with the august executive. The president spun a story about a machine that baffled a chess champion by beating him thrice. The stunned champ cried while inspecting the machine, There's a man in there!Lincoln's good news, he confided from the heights of leadership, was that there was in fact a man in there.

~ Shelby Foote

He is the kind of person I should expect to rescue one from a mad dog at any risk but then insist on a stoical indifference to the fright afterward. Jefferson Davis's future wife describing him at first meeting.

~ Shelby Foote

On Lee as commander: He had a cheerful dignity and could praise them (his men) without seeming to court their favor.

~ Shelby Foote

Right now I'm thinking a good deal about emancipation. One of our sins was slavery, another was emancipation. It's a paradox. In theory, emancipation was one of the glories of our democracy - and it was. But the way it was done led to tragedy, turning four million people loose with no jobs or trades or learning. And then in 1877 for a few electoral votes, just abandoning them entirely. A huge amount of pain and trouble resulted. Everybody in America is still paying for it.

~ Shelby Foote

I think making mistakes and discovering them for yourself is of great value, but to have someone else to point out your mistakes is a shortcut of the process.

~ Shelby Foote

I abhor the idea of a perfect world. It would bore me to tears.

~ Shelby Foote

We have more to fear from the opinions of our friends than the bayonets of our enemies. Politician turned Union General Nathaniel Banks, in plea he couldn't abandon an untenable position.

~ Shelby Foote

A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library.

~ Shelby Foote

I'm crazy about Grant: his character, his nature, his science in fighting and everything else. But I don't like the idea that he never accepted the blame for anything, always found someone else to blame for any mistake that was ever made, including blaming Prentiss for Shiloh.

~ Shelby Foote

I used to write sonnets and various things, and moved from there into writing prose, which, incidentally, is a lot more interesting than poetry, including the rhythms of prose.

~ Shelby Foote

Of all the passions of mankind, the love of novelty most rules the mind. In search of this, from realm to realm we roam. Our fleets come loaded with every folly home.

~ Shelby Foote