Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.
BARBARA TUCHMANThe Church [in the 14th century] gave ceremony and dignity to lives that had little of either. It was the source of beauty and art to which all had some access and which many helped to create.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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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.
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I have always been in a condition in which I cannot not write.
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Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.
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The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.
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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.
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Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
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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.
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The writer’s object is – or should be – to hold the reader’s attention.
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Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.
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An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.
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Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.
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Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.
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Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
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Completeness is rare in history.
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Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible.
BARBARA TUCHMAN