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 TUCHMANI want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
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No nation in the world has so many drastic problems squeezed into so small a space, under such urgent pressure of time and heavy burden of history, as Israel.
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When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.
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Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
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For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.
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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.
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To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
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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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Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as “the most flagrant of all the passions.” Because it can only be satisfied by power over others, government is its favorite field of exercise.
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An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.
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If wisdom in government eludes us, perhaps courage could substitute-the moral courage to terminate mistakes.
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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.
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I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.
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For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.
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No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe.
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Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.
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One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.
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Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
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The writer’s object is – or should be – to hold the reader’s attention.
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Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.
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To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next.
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In the midst of events there is no perspective.
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The Hundred Years’ War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
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The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
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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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Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.
BARBARA TUCHMAN