Stephen Ambrose Quotes

The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.

In 1945, there were more people killed, more buildings destroyed, more high explosives set off, more fires burning than before or since.

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.

Washington and Jefferson were both rich Virginia planters, but they were never friends.

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.

We are part of a country that outshines those that have gone before us and most of those in existence today.

There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.

Almost everything Truman did in foreign affairs I approve of.

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.

Within Easy Company they had made the best friends they had ever had, or would ever have. They were prepared to die for each other; more important, they were prepared to kill for each other.

Neighbors are far better acoustic analyzers for determining the quality of their life versus any acoustic instrument left unattended by an expert.

My first book was the book that changed my life.

The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries you have these great nation states hurling their young men at one another. The victory was really going to rest on who could do the best job of bringing up their kids to become efficient and effective soldiers. That's pretty grandiose, I guess, but I do think that, and thank God it's been the armies of democracy that have emerged from this as the triumphant armies.

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.

To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.

In America, Jefferson noted with approval, women knew their place.

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.

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.

World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.

Like their predecessors, the Presidents of today just throw up their hands.

Dams have harmed our wildlife and made rivers less useful for recreation.

You don't hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school.

It would not be possible to praises nurses too highly.

As to the Indians, the guiding principle was, promise them anything just so long as they get out of the way.

Nixon regarded himself as having been cheated by life. He never got my vote.

Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.

Even before Watergate and his resignation, Nixon had inspired conflicting and passionate emotions.

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.

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.

The Canadians have managed to live peacefully with their Indians. It is disgrace that the United States has not done the same.

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.

History is everything that has ever happened.

We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace.

The great wars of the 20th Century made it into the worst Century ever.

My favorite book is the last one printed, which is always better than those that were published earlier.

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.

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?

I thought Nixon was the worst President we had ever had, save only perhaps Andrew Johnson.

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 American Constitution is the greatest governing document, and at some 7,000 words, just about the shortest.

The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.

Crazy Horse saw history as integrated in the present, incorporated into daily life.

Trial by jury. Live wherever you can make a living. How could a government based on such principles fail?

The more sophisticated we get, the more advanced our buildings and vehicles become, the more vulnerable we are.

I was taught by professors who had done their schooling in the 1930s. Most of them were scornful of, even hated, big business.

The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake.

Reading your own material aloud forces you to listen.