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 TUCHMANNo 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.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.
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Books are the carriers of civilization… Books are humanity in print.
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Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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 -
bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer, which, once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
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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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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The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Woman was the Church’s rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil’s decoy.
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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 -
Wisdom – meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.
BARBARA TUCHMAN -
Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
BARBARA TUCHMAN