For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.
BARBARA TUCHMANTo 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.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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 -
When people don’t have an objective, there’s much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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 -
Human behavior is timeless.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.
BARBARA TUCHMAN