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 TUCHMANIn the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the struggle that is life on Earth.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.
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Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
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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.
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If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
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If all were equalized by death, as the medieval idea constantly emphasized, was it not possible that inequalities on earth were contrary to the will of God?
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Above all, discard the irrelevant.
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Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible.
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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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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
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The nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.
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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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A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.
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To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.
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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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Words are seductive and dangerous material, to be used with caution.
BARBARA TUCHMAN