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Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

Barbara Tuchman

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
In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Contempt Country Law States United
Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Art Christianity Ideas
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Reading Stupid
If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Authority Common Should
For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Cards House Leaving
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

Confronted Government Menace Smash
When people don’t have an objective, there’s much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Effort Interesting People
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Disease Views Years
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
The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Development Facts Tragedy
The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Communism Communist Myth
Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Country Men Opponent Smart
Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers – danger, death, and live ammunition.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Danger Ingredients Missing
To put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Order Original Thought
Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Closing Doors Library

Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

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Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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