Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.
BARBARA TUCHMANOne constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
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Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
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The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.
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Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.
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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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Belgium, where there occurred one of the rare appearances of the hero in history, was lifted above herself by the uncomplicated conscience of her King and, faced with the choice to acquiesce or resist, took less than three hours to make her decision, knowing it might be mortal.
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The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.
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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satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
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Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.
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War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.
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Woman was the Church’s rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil’s decoy.
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The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.
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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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN