To America Quotes

“The author of the Declaration of Independence threw up his hands at the questions of women’s rights…Jefferson‘s attitude toward women was at one with that of the white men of his age. He wrote about almost everything, but almost never about women, not his wife or his mother and certainly not Sally Hemmings…In America, Jefferson noted with approval, women knew their place, which was in the home and, more specifically, in the nursery. Instead of gadding frivolously about town as Frenchwomen did, chasing fashion or meddling in politics, American women were content with “the tender and tranquil amusement of domestic life” and never troubled their pretty heads about politics.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“On the Plains, as in the Eastern woodlands, as on the Pacific Coast, there were irreconcilable differences between the Indians’ way of life and the life the white immigrants wanted to build. One had to give way. The white man had the numbers and the technology. It is easy to today to sit back and criticize the United States for its treatment of the Indians, or the individual settlers and frontiersman for what they did to the Native Americans, but for them the choices were to go back to where they came from or to go forward and seize what they wanted or needed.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“There is no way to measure or accurately compare, but it can be asserted that no men ever worked harder under more dangerous conditions than those who built the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific [railroads].”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“The United States fought Germany and Japan, racist societies, with a segregated army.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“In [Eisenhower’s] view, ‘Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.’ In his farewell address as President, he asserted, ‘We - you and I, and our government - must avoid plundering for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all ages to come.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“In the Second World War, if you were going to be conquered and occupied by a foreign army, the last thing you wanted was for it to be the German, Japanese, or Red army. The first thing, around the world, was to hope it would be the American Army. This was because you would be better fed, receive better medical care, treated like a human being.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“America is the first democratic nation-state, now more than two and a quarter centuries old. Our greatest triumphs are the 18th century creation of our democratic republic, the 19th century abolishment of slavery and the holding together of our Union, and our 20th century crushing of totalitarianism.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“Today, we are the world’s only superpower, and around the world - even in Russia - there is nearly virtual agreement that if there is to be only one superpower then thank God Almighty that it is the United States.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“D-Day was the pivot point of the 20th century. Everything that went before it can be said to have led up to it; all that followed came about because of what happened that day.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

“In my interviews with World War II veterans, they sometimes tell me that the reason they fought was they had learned as children the difference between right and wrong and they didn’t want to live in a world in which wrong prevailed, so they fought.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian