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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.

Barbara Tuchman

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Military Peace War
In the midst of events there is no perspective.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Events Midst Perspective
The Hundred Years’ War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Unity War Years
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

Humanity Ideas Years
The reality of a question is inevitably more complicated than we would like to suppose.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Complicated Question Reality Suppose
No female iniquity was more severely condemned than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Eyebrows Female Habit
A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Government Periods Pursuit
When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Heard Presumption Reason
Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

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

Authority Common Should
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.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

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

Book Science Sea Teacher
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?
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Earth Ideas Medieval
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
The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Communism Communist Myth
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

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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Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others – only to lose it over themselves.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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