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Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.

Barbara Tuchman

In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Contempt Country Law States United
The power to command frequently causes failure to think.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Cause Command Thinking
Woman was the Church’s rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil’s decoy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Church Devil Women
Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Evoke Moments Speech
The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Poison Running War
Completeness is rare in history.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Completeness History Rare
It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around…. It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Atheism Believe Historical
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
Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Easier Faces Government
Wisdom – meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Appreciation Common Sense Wisdom
Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Power Strong Thinking
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Artist Book Fiction Reason
Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Demand Discipline Order
If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Authority Common Should
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 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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Fighting History Police

Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.

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Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.

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Popular Authors

More Barbara Tuchman Quotes