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 TUCHMANBooks are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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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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Doctrine tied itself into infinite knots over the realities of sex.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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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When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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 -
In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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 -
Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
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The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.
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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 -
satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
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If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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.
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I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.
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Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
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To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.
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Human behavior is timeless.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
To put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
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When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
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The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources.
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No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.
BARBARA TUCHMAN