If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
BARBARA TUCHMANEvery successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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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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In the midst of events there is no perspective.
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Wisdom – meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.
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satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
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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 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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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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To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.
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When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.
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Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.
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The power to command frequently causes failure to think.
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Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.
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Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers – danger, death, and live ammunition.
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In 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.
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Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels.
BARBARA TUCHMAN