Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMANModern 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.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
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Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.
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in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight
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Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.
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I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.
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The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
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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.
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We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.
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An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.
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Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced
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The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
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For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.
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Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.
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The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.
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Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN






