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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 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 TUCHMAN

Hero Kings Knowing
Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Folly Men Power
The whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Country Money More Prevail Property
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
BARBARA TUCHMAN

History Past Tree
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 TUCHMAN

Disease Views Years
Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Argument Desire Found
The Hundred Years’ War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Unity War Years
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 TUCHMAN

Disaster Facts Records
The power to command frequently causes failure to think.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Cause Command Thinking
If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Authority Common Should
Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Civilization Development Impossible
In the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the struggle that is life on Earth.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Giving Men Struggle
Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Confronted Government Menace Smash
The Church [in the 14th century] gave ceremony and dignity to lives that had little of either. It was the source of beauty and art to which all had some access and which many helped to create.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Art Church Little
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 TUCHMAN

Decision Faces Government
When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Commerce Massacres Zeal

Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.

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Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.

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