Stephen Ambrose Quotes
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Immigrants do more than help us win our wars, or set up cleaning shops or ethnic restaurants.
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There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
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Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.
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The American Constitution is the greatest governing document, and at some 7,000 words, just about the shortest.
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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.
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Even before Watergate and his resignation, Nixon had inspired conflicting and passionate emotions.
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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.
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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.
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My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.
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To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.
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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?
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Like their predecessors, the Presidents of today just throw up their hands.
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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.
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I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam.
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The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.
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Nixon regarded himself as having been cheated by life. He never got my vote.
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Crazy Horse saw history as integrated in the present, incorporated into daily life.
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We are part of a country that outshines those that have gone before us and most of those in existence today.
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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.
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As to the Indians, the guiding principle was, promise them anything just so long as they get out of the way.
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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.
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Oftentimes the fascinating thing is that people who are seen as commanding figures at the moment that they were considered for President and did not run turned out to be treated by history as much more minor figures politically.
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Dams have harmed our wildlife and made rivers less useful for recreation.
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Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.