Barbara W. Tuchman Quotes

103 Sourced Quotes

No nation in the world has so many drastic problems squeezed into so small a space, under such urgent pressure of time and heavy burden of history, as Israel.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Belgium, where there occurred one of the rare appearances of the hero in history, was lifted above herself by the uncomplicated conscience of her King and, faced with the choice to acquiesce or resist, took less than three hours to make her decision, knowing it might be mortal.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.

Barbara W. Tuchman
If all were equalized by death, as the medieval idea constantly emphasized, was it not possible that inequalities on earth were contrary to the will of God?

Barbara W. Tuchman
If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements, corrupts even more.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as the most flagrant of all the passions.

Barbara W. Tuchman
The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.

Barbara W. Tuchman
When reproached for spending too much time with books and clerks, Charles answered, As long as knowledge is honored in this country, so long will it prosper.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, 'lighthouses' as the poet said 'erected in the sea of time.' They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others—only to lose it over themselves.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Chroniclers habitually matched numbers to the awesomeness of the event.

Barbara W. Tuchman
The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Words are seductive and dangerous material, to be used with caution.

Barbara W. Tuchman
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard.

Barbara W. Tuchman
What counts is not so much the fact as what the public perceives to be the fact.

Barbara W. Tuchman
The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Left to face a hungry winter robbed of their hard-earned harvests, the people experienced their own warrior class not as protectors but ravagers.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex. As long as combat was desirable as the source of honor and glory, the knight had no wish to share it with the commoner, even for the sake of success.

Barbara W. Tuchman
To admit error and cut losses is rare among individuals, unknown among states.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels.

Barbara W. Tuchman
The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.

Barbara W. Tuchman
One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Perhaps by this time the 14th century was not quite sane. If enlightened self-interest is the criterion of sanity, in the verdict of Michelet, no epoch was more naturally mad.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.

Barbara W. Tuchman
Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.

Barbara W. Tuchman
His (Deschamps') complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb.

Barbara W. Tuchman