Quotes By Stephen Ambrose

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Neither Johnson nor his party nor the government as a whole were willing to raise, train, equip, and then send Vietnam sufficient manpower to do the job.

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

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.

American is the first democratic nation-state.

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

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.

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

Reading your own material aloud forces you to listen.

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

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

Custer had dead heroes. Crazy Horse had only live ones.

Who today is willing to say that Texas and California and the remainder of the Southwest would be better off if they were governed by Mexico?

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

The war in Vietnam I thought a dreadful mistake.

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

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

I was too young for Korea and too old for Vietnam.

American corporations hate to give away money.

Andrew Johnson was a Southerner generally who proclaimed that his native state of Tennessee was a country for white men.

Almost everything Truman did in foreign affairs I approve of.

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.

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

I'm no politician. I'm an historian who has learned through a lifetime of studying that nothing in the world beats universal education.