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The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.

Barbara Tuchman

To explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Conduct Human Irrational Phenomena Strange
Words are seductive and dangerous material, to be used with caution.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Dangerous Seductive Used
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Country Men Opponent Smart
Above all, discard the irrelevant.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Discard Irrelevant Matters
If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Degrees Taken Writing
Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Heels Jackals War
Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Evoke Moments Speech
If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Authority Common Should
When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Heard Presumption Reason
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Capitalist Economy Sin Usury
[T]he obverse of facile emotion in the 14th century was a general insensitivity to the spectacle of pain and death.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Century Emotion Pain
Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Battle Military Mind
For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Purpose Technology Use
Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Comfort Military Mind
To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Forgiven Position Responsible
The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

History People Poetry

The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.

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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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