Barbara Tuchman Quotes

 "Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "War is the unfolding of miscalculations." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. His exercise of judgment comes in their selection, his art in their arrangement." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "The power to command frequently causes failure to think." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Words are seductive and dangerous material, to be used with caution." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive." ~ 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

 "Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight" ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "When people don't have an objective, there's much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Wisdom - meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Woman was the Church's rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil's decoy." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "In the midst of events there is no perspective." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that they have." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Books are the carriers of civilization... Books are humanity in print." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "If wisdom in government eludes us, perhaps courage could substitute-the moral courage to terminate mistakes." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "No female iniquity was more severely condemned than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next." ~ Barbara Tuchman

 "The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair." ~ Barbara Tuchman