The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
BARBARA TUCHMANThe 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.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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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.
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No nation in the world has so many drastic problems squeezed into so small a space, under such urgent pressure of time and heavy burden of history, as Israel.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
To put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
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In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
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To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
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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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
I have always been in a condition in which I cannot not write.
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No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.
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To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.
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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
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Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.
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The power to command frequently causes failure to think.
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When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.
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Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
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For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
BARBARA TUCHMAN