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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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Stephen Ambrose
Age: 66 †
Born: 1936
Born: January 10
Died: 2002
Died: October 13
Biographer
Essayist
Historian
University Teacher
Decatur
Illinois
Stephen Edward Ambrose
First
Stand
Virtues
Virtue
Washington
Came
Rock
Choices
Became
Nations
Rocks
President
Republican
Character
Choice
Unanimous
Firsts
Nation
Solid

More quotes by 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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The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake.
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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Nothing is inevitable in life. People make choices, and those choices have results, and we all live with the results.
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.
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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We are part of a country that outshines those that have gone before us and most of those in existence today.
Stephen Ambrose
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My first book was the book that changed my life.
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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The great wars of the 20th Century made it into the worst Century ever.
Stephen Ambrose
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I think that the opportunity to improve race relations in the United States has been put off temporarily.
Stephen Ambrose
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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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It would not be possible to praises nurses too highly.
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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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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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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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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Washington, not Jefferson, freed his slaves upon his death.
Stephen Ambrose
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I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam.
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