Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.
BARBARA TUCHMANThe ills and disorders of the 14th century could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years until at some imperceptible moment, by the some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
To explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
The Hundred Years’ War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
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For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
BARBARA 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 TUCHMAN -
Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMAN






