The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.
BARBARA TUCHMANWhile husbands and lovers in the stories are of all kinds, ranging from sympathetic to disgusting, women are invariably deceivers: inconstant, unscrupulous, quarrelsome, querulous, lecherous, shameless, although not necessarily all of these at once.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
The power to command frequently causes failure to think.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Historians who stuff in every item of research they have found, every shoelace and telephone call of a biographical subject, are not doing the hard work of selecting and shaping a readable story.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Belgium, where there occurred one of the rare appearances of the hero in history, was lifted above herself by the uncomplicated conscience of her King and, faced with the choice to acquiesce or resist, took less than three hours to make her decision, knowing it might be mortal.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers – danger, death, and live ammunition.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
The ills and disorders of the 14th century could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years until at some imperceptible moment, by the some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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 -
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
BARBARA TUCHMAN






