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

Stephen Ambrose

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Stephen Ambrose
Age: 66 †
Born: 1936
Born: January 10
Died: 2002
Died: October 13
Biographer
Essayist
Historian
University Teacher
Decatur
Illinois
Stephen Edward Ambrose
Made
Bomb
World
Bombs
Optimism
Continue
Americans
Cold
War
Hard
Atomic

More quotes by Stephen Ambrose

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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.
Stephen Ambrose
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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
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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.
Stephen Ambrose
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History is everything that has ever happened.
Stephen Ambrose
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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.
Stephen Ambrose
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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.
Stephen Ambrose
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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
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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.
Stephen Ambrose
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The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake.
Stephen Ambrose
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Washington and Jefferson were both rich Virginia planters, but they were never friends.
Stephen Ambrose
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Almost everything Truman did in foreign affairs I approve of.
Stephen Ambrose
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My first book was the book that changed my life.
Stephen Ambrose
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There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.
Stephen Ambrose
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Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.
Stephen Ambrose
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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
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I thought Nixon was the worst President we had ever had, save only perhaps Andrew Johnson.
Stephen Ambrose
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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
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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
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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
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Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.
Stephen Ambrose