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Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

Barbara Tuchman

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

Interesting Prevention War
Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Demand Discipline Order
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Satisfying Sentences Writing
One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Conducting Finished Research
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
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
They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Banker Companion Erect Lighthouse Magician Sea Teacher
Completeness is rare in history.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Completeness History Rare
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

Cost Pay War
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
BARBARA TUCHMAN

History Past Tree
For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Cards House Leaving
Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Power Strong Thinking
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

Hero Kings Knowing
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
Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Country Men Opponent Smart
Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
BARBARA TUCHMAN

Evoke Moments Speech

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

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Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

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Popular Authors

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