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Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.

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

Power Strong Thinking
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Female Males Sin
In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Historical History Peace
[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
Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Humanity Print
If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power, with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements,corrupts even more.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Compromise Power Weakness
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 TUCHMAN

Atheism Believe Historical
I have always been in a condition in which I cannot not write.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Always Condition Writer Writing
To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Forgiven Position Responsible
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Europe War World
Woman was the Church’s rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil’s decoy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Church Devil Women
Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Different Eye Honor
The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history’s clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Dying Sunset World
Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

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

Evoke Moments Speech
To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Library Muse Shelter

Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.

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Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Barbara Tuchman Quotes