They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMANBooks are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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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.
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Of all the ills that our poor … society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards.
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Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.
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The clergy [in the 14th century] on the whole were probably no more lecherous or greedy or untrustworthy than other men, but because they were supposed to be better or nearer to God than other men, their failings attracted more attention.
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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 They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.
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Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.
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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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Wisdom – meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.
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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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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.
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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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War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
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The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
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When people don’t have an objective, there’s much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.
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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