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

Barbara Tuchman

The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

History People Poetry
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
The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Interesting Prevention War
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Book Communication Quality
Words are seductive and dangerous material, to be used with caution.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Dangerous Seductive Used
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
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
The whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Country Money More Prevail Property
To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Forgiven Position Responsible
Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Art Christianity Ideas
in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Hindsight Midst War
Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Evoke Moments Speech
The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Communism Communist Myth
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

Hard Stories Telephone Work
Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as “the most flagrant of all the passions.” Because it can only be satisfied by power over others, government is its favorite field of exercise.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Exercise Passion Successful
When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Heard Presumption Reason

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

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

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