Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
BARBARA TUCHMANBelgium, 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.
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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Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible.
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Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.
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That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.
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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
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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.
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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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Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers – danger, death, and live ammunition.
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Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.
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Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.
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Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled.
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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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Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
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If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
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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 TUCHMAN