black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Barbara Tuchman

Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Comfort Military Mind
No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Capitalist Economy Sin Usury
Doctrine tied itself into infinite knots over the realities of sex.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Doctrine Reality Sex
Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Civilization Literature History
Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Humanity Print
In the midst of events there is no perspective.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Events Midst Perspective
An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Essentials Sound Writing
I have always been in a condition in which I cannot not write.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Always Condition Writer Writing
The 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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Humanity Ideas Years
The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Conflict Differences Planets
Historians who stuff in every item of research they have found, every shoelace and telephone call of a biographical subject, are not doing the hard work of selecting and shaping a readable story.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Hard Stories Telephone Work
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 TUCHMAN

Earth Ideas Medieval
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

Cost Pay War
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
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Female Males Sin
To put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Order Original Thought

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Barbara Tuchman Quotes