The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
BARBARA TUCHMANFateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
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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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Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced
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The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.
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Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.
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In the midst of events there is no perspective.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.
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in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight
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Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.
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In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
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For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.
BARBARA TUCHMAN