Quotes from Stephen Ambrose

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

Jefferson owned slaves. He did not believe that all were created equal. He was a racist.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

History is everything that has ever happened.

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.

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

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

American corporations hate to give away money.

It would not be possible to praise nurses too highly.

American is the first democratic nation-state.

Nothing is inevitable in life. People make choices, and those choices have results, and we all live with the results.

My first book was the book that changed my life.

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

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

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