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.
There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.
Nothing is inevitable in life. People make choices, and those choices have results, and we all live with the results.
Friends never cheat on each other, or take advantage, or lie. Friends do not spy on one another, yet they have no secrets. Friends glory in each other's successes and are downcast by the failures. Friends minister to each other, nurse each other. Friends give to each other, worry about each other, stand always ready to help. Perfect friendship is rarely achieved, but at its height it is an ecstasy.
Friendships are different from all other relationships. Unlike acquaintanceship, friendship is based on love. Unlike lovers and married couples, it is free of jealousy. Unlike children and parents, it knows neither criticism nor resentment. Friendship has no status in law. Business partnerships are based on a contract. So is marriage. Parents are bound by law. But friendships are freely entered into, freely given, and freely exercised.
D-Day represents the greatest achievement of the american people and system in the 20th century. It was the pivot point of the 20th century. It was the day on which the decision was made as to who was going to rule in this world in the second half of the 20th century. Is it going to be Nazism, is it going to be communism, or are the democracies going to prevail?
The number one secret of being a successful writer is this: marry an English major.
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.
Lieutenant Welsh remembered walking around among the sleeping men, and thinking to himself that 'they had looked at and smelled death all around them all day but never even dreamed of applying the term to themselves. They hadn't come here to fear. They hadn't come to die. They had come to win.
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.
In the 19th century, we devoted our best minds to exploring nature. In the 20th century, we devoted ourselves to controlling and harnessing it. In the 21st century, we must devote ourselves to restoring it.
The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.
You don't hate history, you hate the way it was taught to you in high school.
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.
We know how to win wars. We must learn now to win peace.
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.
The American Constitution is the greatest governing document, and at some 7,000 words, just about the shortest.
Neighbors are far better acoustic analyzers for determining the quality of their life versus any acoustic instrument left unattended by an expert.
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.
The more sophisticated we get, the more advanced our buildings and vehicles become, the more vulnerable we are.
It would not be possible to praises nurses too highly.
I'm no politician. I'm an historian who has learned through a lifetime of studying that nothing in the world beats universal education.
I thought Nixon was the worst President we had ever had, save only perhaps Andrew Johnson.
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.
