The Hundred Years’ War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
BARBARA TUCHMANThe nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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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.
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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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We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.
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War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
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Doctrine tied itself into infinite knots over the realities of sex.
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Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.
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The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
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The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.
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Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
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Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.
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Above all, discard the irrelevant.
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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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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
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The 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.
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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