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Barbara W. Tuchman Quotes
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What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement. His method is narrative.... His subject is the story of man's past. His function is to make it known.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life...
Barbara W. Tuchman
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To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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I have always felt like an artist when I work on a book. I see no reason why the word should always be confined to writers of fiction and poetry.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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To ensure that no one gained an advantage over anyone else, commercial law [in the 14th century] prohibited innovation in tools or techniques, underselling below a fixed price, working late by artificial light, employing extra apprentices or wife and underage children, and advertising of wares or praising them to the detriment of others.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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In the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight
Barbara W. Tuchman
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The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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If wisdom in government eludes us, perhaps courage could substitute-the moral courage to terminate mistakes.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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That the Jews were unholy was a belief so ingrained by the Church [by the 14th century] that the most devout persons were the harshest in their antipathy, none more so than St. Louis.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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In April 1917 the illusion of isolation was destroyed, America came to the end of innocence, and of the exuberant freedom of bachelor independence. That the responsibilities of world power have not made us happier is no surprise. To help ourselves manage them, we have replaced the illusion of isolation with a new illusion of omnipotence.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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What is government but an arrangement by which the many accept the authority of the few?
Barbara W. Tuchman
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Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that they have.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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Wisdom—meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by government of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any human activity.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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Bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer, which, once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.
Barbara W. Tuchman
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Quote of the day
Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Barbara W. Tuchman
Born:
January 30, 1912
Died:
February 6, 1989
(aged 77)
Bio:
Barbara Wertheim Tuchman was an American historian and author.
Known for:
The Guns of August (1962)
A Distant Mirror (1978)
The Proud Tower (1966)
The March of Folly (1984)
Most used words:
war
time
power
history
government
century
books
14th
dead
fact
policy
historian
mind
people
face
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