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

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
Planters
Jefferson
Virginia
Washington
Rich
Friends
Never

More quotes by Stephen Ambrose

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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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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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Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.
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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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There are many more want-to-be writers out there than good editors.
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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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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.
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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.
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World War II, the atomic bomb, the Cold War, made it hard for Americans to continue their optimism.
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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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The great wars of the 20th Century made it into the worst Century ever.
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.
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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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The Canadians have managed to live peacefully with their Indians. It is disgrace that the United States has not done the same.
Stephen Ambrose
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Almost everything Truman did in foreign affairs I approve of.
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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History is everything that has ever happened.
Stephen Ambrose
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I'm no politician. I'm an historian who has learned through a lifetime of studying that nothing in the world beats universal education.
Stephen Ambrose
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There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
Stephen Ambrose
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The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake.
Stephen Ambrose