1.
I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam.
Stephen Ambrose
2.
The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.
Stephen Ambrose
3.
Winning the Revolutionary War, or the Civil War, or World War II were the turning points in our history, the sine qua non of our forward progress.
Stephen Ambrose
4.
Crazy Horse saw history as integrated in the present, incorporated into daily life.
Stephen Ambrose
5.
There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
Stephen Ambrose
6.
At the core, the American citizen soldiers knew the difference between right and wrong, and they didn't want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed. So they fought, and won, and we all of us, living and yet to be born, must be forever profoundly grateful.
Stephen Ambrose
7.
The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.
Stephen Ambrose
8.
D-Day represents the greatest achievement of the american people and system in the 20th century. It was the pivot point of the 20th century. It was the day on which the decision was made as to who was going to rule in this world in the second half of the 20th century. Is it going to be Nazism, is it going to be communism, or are the democracies going to prevail?
Stephen Ambrose
9.
Eisenhower had the clearest blue eyes. He would fix them on you. In my every interview with him, he would lock his eyes on to mine and keep them there.
Stephen Ambrose
10.
The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.
Stephen Ambrose
11.
Nothing is inevitable in life. People make choices, and those choices have results, and we all live with the results.
Stephen Ambrose
12.
Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.
Stephen Ambrose
13.
I was taught by professors who had done their schooling in the 1930s. Most of them were scornful of, even hated, big business.
Stephen Ambrose
14.
Friends never cheat on each other, or take advantage, or lie. Friends do not spy on one another, yet they have no secrets. Friends glory in each other's successes and are downcast by the failures. Friends minister to each other, nurse each other. Friends give to each other, worry about each other, stand always ready to help. Perfect friendship is rarely achieved, but at its height it is an ecstasy.
Stephen Ambrose
15.
Friendships are different from all other relationships. Unlike acquaintanceship, friendship is based on love. Unlike lovers and married couples, it is free of jealousy. Unlike children and parents, it knows neither criticism nor resentment. Friendship has no status in law. Business partnerships are based on a contract. So is marriage. Parents are bound by law. But friendships are freely entered into, freely given, and freely exercised.
Stephen Ambrose
16.
In the 19th century, we devoted our best minds to exploring nature. In the 20th century, we devoted ourselves to controlling and harnessing it. In the 21st century, we must devote ourselves to restoring it.
Stephen Ambrose
17.
It is through history that we learn who we are and how we got that way, why and how we changed, why the good sometimes prevailed and sometimes did not.
Stephen Ambrose
18.
My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.
Stephen Ambrose
19.
Johnson had been the most powerful man in the world, yet the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong had resisted, overcome his power, broken his will.
Stephen Ambrose
20.
Trial by jury. Live wherever you can make a living. How could a government based on such principles fail?
Stephen Ambrose
21.
When Hitler declared war on the United States, he was betting that German soldiers, raised up in the Hitler Youth, would always out fight American soldiers, brought up in the Boy Scouts. He lost that bet. The Boy Scouts had been taught how to figure their way out of their own problems.
Stephen Ambrose
22.
My first book was the book that changed my life.
Stephen Ambrose
23.
Dams have harmed our wildlife and made rivers less useful for recreation.
Stephen Ambrose
24.
The American Constitution is the greatest governing document, and at some 7,000 words, just about the shortest.
Stephen Ambrose
25.
During the Second World War, the Germans took four years to build the Atlantic Wall. On four beaches it held up the Allies for about an hour; at Omaha it held up the U.S. for less than one day. The Atlantic Wall must therefore be regarded as one of the greatest blunders in military history.
Stephen Ambrose
26.
I'm no politician. I'm an historian who has learned through a lifetime of studying that nothing in the world beats universal education.
Stephen Ambrose
27.
It would not be possible to praises nurses too highly.
Stephen Ambrose
28.
The more sophisticated we get, the more advanced our buildings and vehicles become, the more vulnerable we are.
Stephen Ambrose
29.
Washington's character was rock solid. He came to stand for the new nation and its republican virtues, which was why he became our first President by unanimous choice.
Stephen Ambrose
30.
To have some parts flowing free again . . . with deer grazing on its banks . . . ducks and geese raising their young in the backwaters . . . eddies and twists and turns for canoeists . . . and fishing opportunities such as Lewis and Clark enjoyed . . . would be the finest possible tribute to the men of the Expedition, and a priceless gift for our children.
Stephen Ambrose
31.
In America, Jefferson noted with approval, women knew their place.
Stephen Ambrose
32.
In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.
Stephen Ambrose
33.
World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.
Stephen Ambrose
34.
There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.
Stephen Ambrose
35.
Eisenhower is my choice as the American of the 20th Century. Of all the men I've studied and written about, he is the brightest and the best.
Stephen Ambrose
36.
As to the Indians, the guiding principle was, promise them anything just so long as they get out of the way.
Stephen Ambrose
37.
To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.
Stephen Ambrose
38.
Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.
Stephen Ambrose
39.
American corporations hate to give away money.
Stephen Ambrose
40.
Even before Watergate and his resignation, Nixon had inspired conflicting and passionate emotions.
Stephen Ambrose
41.
The Canadians have managed to live peacefully with their Indians. It is disgrace that the United States has not done the same.
Stephen Ambrose
42.
American is the first democratic nation-state.
Stephen Ambrose
43.
Who today is willing to say that Texas and California and the remainder of the Southwest would be better off if they were governed by Mexico?
Stephen Ambrose
44.
Neighbors are far better acoustic analyzers for determining the quality of their life versus any acoustic instrument left unattended by an expert.
Stephen Ambrose
45.
I think it's just that the private lives of our public leaders are so much more exposed today that if you're sensitive to protecting your family, it's much harder to not get defensive when somebody asks you those really rude questions about what your wife and your children are thinking and feeling at that exact moment.
Stephen Ambrose
46.
Nixon regarded himself as having been cheated by life. He never got my vote.
Stephen Ambrose
47.
The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake.
Stephen Ambrose
48.
Washington and Jefferson were both rich Virginia planters, but they were never friends.
Stephen Ambrose
49.
You don't hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school.
Stephen Ambrose
50.
History is everything that has ever happened.
Stephen Ambrose