Stephen Ambrose Quotes
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.
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.
Nothing is inevitable in life. People make choices, and those choices have results, and we all live with the results.
I was taught by professors who had done their schooling in the 1930s. Most of them were scornful of, even hated, big business.
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.
Trial by jury. Live wherever you can make a living. How could a government based on such principles fail?
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.
My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.
The American Constitution is the greatest governing document, and at some 7,000 words, just about the shortest.
I'm no politician. I'm an historian who has learned through a lifetime of studying that nothing in the world beats universal education.
The more sophisticated we get, the more advanced our buildings and vehicles become, the more vulnerable we are.
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.
World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.
In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.
To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.
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.
Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.
Neighbors are far better acoustic analyzers for determining the quality of their life versus any acoustic instrument left unattended by an expert.
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?
As to the Indians, the guiding principle was, promise them anything just so long as they get out of the way.
The Canadians have managed to live peacefully with their Indians. It is disgrace that the United States has not done the same.
Even before Watergate and his resignation, Nixon had inspired conflicting and passionate emotions.
Washington and Jefferson were both rich Virginia planters, but they were never friends.
Immigrants do more than help us win our wars, or set up cleaning shops or ethnic restaurants.
Writing is not the easiest way to make a living. Your work long hours, usually all by yourself. It is not a way to make money.
I've always tried to be fair to my subjects. That's easy when they are as likable and admirable as Lewis and Clark, or Eisenhower.
Jefferson owned slaves. He did not believe that all were created equal. He was a racist.
We are part of a country that outshines those that have gone before us and most of those in existence today.
I thought Nixon was the worst President we had ever had, save only perhaps Andrew Johnson.
