Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
BARBARA TUCHMANHonor wears different coats to different eyes.
More Barbara Tuchman Quotes
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Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.
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Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence.
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The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources.
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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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In the midst of events there is no perspective.
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In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
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Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
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One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.
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I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.
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For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
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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 the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight
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We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.
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Above all, discard the irrelevant.
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To explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.
BARBARA TUCHMAN