105 Quotes & Sayings By Barbara W Tuchman

Barbara W. Tuchman was born in New York, and educated at Wellesley and Oxford. She began her career at the New York Times, and later taught history at Wellesley and Harvard. Her books include: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century; The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam; The Guns of August; The Proud Tower; and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century (based on her book A Distant Mirror: Orientalism in Russian Literature).

A reformer exhorted children that they would succeed where he...
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A reformer exhorted children that they would succeed where he and his colleagues had failed with the charge: "Live for that better day. Barbara W. Tuchman
Everything interested him and everything excited him.
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Everything interested him and everything excited him. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in . Barbara W. Tuchman
Books are humanity in print.
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Books are humanity in print. Barbara W. Tuchman
Books are ... companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures...
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Books are ... companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of mind. Books are humanity in print. Barbara W. Tuchman
Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it...
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Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex. Barbara W. Tuchman
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House Speaker Thomas Reed could destroy an argument or expose a fallacy in fewer words than anyone else. His language was vivid and picturesque. He had a way of phrasing things which was peculiarly apt and peculiarly his own. Barbara W. Tuchman
Now according to German logic, a declaration of war was...
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Now according to German logic, a declaration of war was found to be unnecessary because of imaginary bombings Barbara W. Tuchman
Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for...
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Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all passions. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Any person who considers himself, and intends to remain, a member of Western society inherits the Western past from Athens and Jerusalem to Runnymede and Valley Forge, as well as to Watts and Chicago of August 1968. He may ignore it or deny it, but that does not alter the fact. The past sits back and smiles and knows it owns him anyway. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Nineteenth-century liberalism had assumed that man was a rational being who operated naturally according to his own best interests, so that in the end, what was reasonable would prevail. On this principle liberals defended extension of the suffrage toward the goal of one man, one vote. But a rise in literacy and in the right to vote, as the event proved, did nothing to increase common sense in politics. The mob that is moved by waving the bloody shirt, that decides elections in response to slogans– Free Silver, Hang the Kaiser, Two Cars in Every Garage–is not exhibiting any greater political sense than Marie Antoinette, who said, “Let them eat cake, ” or Caligula, who made his horse a consul. The common man proved no wiser than the decadent aristocrat. He has not shown in public affairs the innate wisdom which democracy presumed he possessed. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The writer of history, I believe, has a number of duties vis-à-vis the reader, if he wants to keep him reading. The first is to distill. He must do the preliminary work for the reader, assemble the information, make sense of it, select the essential, discard the irrelevant- above all, discard the irrelevant - and put the rest together so that it forms a developing dramatic narrative. Narrative, it has been said , is the lifeblood of history. To offer a mass of undigested facts, of names not identified and places not located, is of no use to the reader and is simple laziness on the part of the author, or pedantry to show how much he has read. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Government was rarely more than a choice between the disastrous and the unpalatable. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The process of gaining power employs means which degrade or brutalize the seeker, who awakes to find that power has been possessed at the cost of virtue or moral purpose lost. Barbara W. Tuchman
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No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe. Barbara W. Tuchman
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William McKinley was a man made to be managed. Barbara W. Tuchman
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House speaker Thomas read could see the trend, but he could not have changed himself. Barbara W. Tuchman
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What other country has had the privilege of making the world's heart beat faster? Barbara W. Tuchman
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Diplomacy's primary law: LEAVE ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The art of oratory was considered part of the equipment of a statesman. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The author says one patrician English leader saw his relationship with the populace thusly: He wasn't responsible TO them. He was responsible FOR them. He was responsible for their care. Barbara W. Tuchman
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A minister's (cabinet member's) function was not to DO the work but to see that it got done. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Duty was not untinged by ambition. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Britain had an air of careless supremacy which GALLED her neighbors. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Confronted by menace or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, and drefine it. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The utility of perseverance in absurdity is more than I could ever discern. Edmund Burke Barbara W. Tuchman
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He was always acting, always enveloping himself in artificiality, perhaps to conceal the volcano within. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Connection" was the cement of the governing class. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Between the happening of a historical process and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretches, full of pitfalls. Barbara W. Tuchman
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I will only mention that the independent power of words to affect the writing of history is a thing to be watched out for. They have an almost frightening autonomous power to produce in the mind of the reader an image or idea that was not in the mind of the writer. Obviously they operate this way in all forms of writing, but history is particularly sensitive because one has a duty to be accurate, and careless use of words can leave a false impression one had not intended. Barbara W. Tuchman
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In writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense. Barbara W. Tuchman
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If the historian will submit himself to his material instead of trying to impose himself on his material, then the material will ultimately speak to him and supply the answers. Barbara W. Tuchman
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They resented the patronage they depended upon. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Even his own speeches bored him. Barbara W. Tuchman
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A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Barbara W. Tuchman
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An event of great agony is bearable only in the belief that it will bring about a better world. When it does not, as in the aftermath of another vast calamity in 1914-18, disillusion is deep and moves on to self-doubt and self-disgust. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He had been present in their minds not as a man but as an idea. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Isolation might be more hazardous than splendor. Barbara W. Tuchman
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If it was bliss to be alive, to hunt was rapture. Barbara W. Tuchman
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How much does a man's effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VII Barbara W. Tuchman
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No single characteristic ever overtakes an entire society. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Prison does not silence ideas whose time has come. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The scene is France. The theater is the world. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Malignant phenomena do not come out of a golden age. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Asked what would be his idea of Heaven, one statesman in 1897 said it would be to "receive a flow of telegrams alternating news of a British victory by sea and a British victory by land. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The tribal pull of patriotism could have no better testimony. Barbara W. Tuchman
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All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Disorder is the least tolerable up sinful conditions. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Why, since folly or perversity is expected of individuals, should we expect anything else from government? Barbara W. Tuchman
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Irritability was an occupational disease. Intolerant and intolerable belong in the same category. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Even the respectable have a small anarchist hidden on the inside. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Everything took on the color of blood. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The overpowering unimportance of this MAKES ME SPEECHLESS. — Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Reed Barbara W. Tuchman
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Humanizing war?! You may as well talk of humanizing Hell. Sir John Fisher Barbara W. Tuchman
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No one is is sure of his premise as the man who knows too little. Barbara W. Tuchman
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If they are afraid of revision in the laboratory, truth will never be released except by accident. Barbara W. Tuchman
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When meeting criticism, he would regard it not as something to resent but as a thing to be examined, like an interesting beetle. "That's a curious view, not uninteresting. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Awful momentum makes carrying through easier than calling off folly. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The fate of warnings in political affairs is to be futile when the recipient wishes otherwise. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He had the ruthlessness of uninterrupted success. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Let us retreat when we can, not when we must. Lord Chatham Barbara W. Tuchman
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Folly is a child of power. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Policy was not reconsidered because the governing group had no habit of purposeful consultation. Barbara W. Tuchman
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In proportion that property is small, the danger of misusing the franchisee is great. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Our misconception in viewing the past lies in assuming that doubt and fear, permit, protests, violence and hate were not equally present. Barbara W. Tuchman
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One English nobleman and statesman read and reread a particular work of literature because it was "the only book which allowed him to forget politics. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Chronicling future appeasing Prime Minister Joseph Chamberlain's rise to Parliament from first-generation commercial interests rather than the aristocracy, the author diagnoses even then that he had no center outside himself. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Enormity of the stakes became the new self-hypnosis. Barbara W. Tuchman
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His only weakness was the habit of prophesying war within the next fortnight. George Bernard Shaw Barbara W. Tuchman
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He never hears the truth about himself by not wishing to hear it." Pope Alexander Barbara W. Tuchman
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The limitation prompting folly " was an attitude of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He accomplished wonders of diplomacy on the principle, never give way, and never give offense. Barbara W. Tuchman
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That he survived, and indeed returned to government, was one of man's occasional triumphs over medicine. Barbara W. Tuchman
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England's traditional tolerance was outraged at last. Barbara W. Tuchman
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His one essay in love had exhausted his powers in that direction. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers - danger, death, and live ammunition. Barbara W. Tuchman
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A great imperative imparts a wonderful impulse to the spirit. Barbara W. Tuchman
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These cumbersome vehicles were as convenient as if dinosaurs had survived to be used by cowboys for driving cattle Barbara W. Tuchman
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The greatness of the object enabled my mind to support what my strengths of body was scarce equal to. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He believed that rank without power was a sham. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Advice to young Samuel Gompers that might apply in many other areas: "Learn from socialism, but don't join it. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He believed interim reforms were necessary in order to fix the worker for his destiny. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The affair made men feel larger than life. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Far from a source of suffering, their adopted faith had been a source of power. Barbara W. Tuchman
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One Cardinal entered his cathedral for the first time at his funeral. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He wanted AFFIRMATION rather than INFORMATION. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The love of humanity does not prevent us from being good journalists. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He seemed less in need of a secretary than of someone to listen to him. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Each one of us is serious individually, but together we become frivolous. Barbara W. Tuchman
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He was always the bridge, between men as well as between ideas. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Clearly prize money received more serious attention than scurvy or signals. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Talent for oratory can simulate the need for action and even thought. Barbara W. Tuchman
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As there would be no more inheritance, there would be no more greed. Peter Kropotkin Barbara W. Tuchman
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Proper society did not think about MAKING money, only about spending it. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Civilians who volunteer generally wish to escape, not to share, privatizations worse than their own. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general. Barbara W. Tuchman
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Extravagant sartorial display had a purpose. It created the impression of wealth and power on the opponent and pride in the wearer which has been lost sight of in our nervously egalitarian times. Barbara W. Tuchman
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The Englishman, as an American observed, felt himself the best-governed citizen in the world, even when in opposition he believed the incumbents were ruining the country. Barbara W. Tuchman