black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Barbara Tuchman

Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Different Eye Honor
Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Argument Desire Found
More than a code of manners in war and love, Chivalry was a moral system, governing the whole of noble life.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Knighthood Love War
When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Heard Presumption Reason
The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Fighting History Police
The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Despair Light Past
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
BARBARA TUCHMAN

History Past Tree
To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Firsts Garment Legitimacy
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

Conflict Differences Planets
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Attention Men Untrustworthy
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Female Males Sin
I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Pages Want Writing
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Communication Quality
One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Alternatives Elements Eras
Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Humanity Print
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Barbara Tuchman Quotes