Barbara Tuchman Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Common, Authority, Should

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.520, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• It hurt the economic historians, the Marxists and the fabians, to admit that the Ten Hour Bill, the basic piece of 19th century legislation, came down from the top, out of aa nobleman's private feelings about the Gospel, or that the abolition of the slave trade was achieved, not through the operation of some "law" of profit and loss, but peurlet as the result of tyhe new humanitarianism of the Evangelicals.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Hurt, Loss, Law

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Men, Attention, Untrustworthy

  Barbara Tuchman (2017). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.64, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Library, Shelter, Muse

  1981 Practising History,'The Houses of Research'.

  4 Copy quote

• Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Views, Years, Disease

  "A Distant Mirror". Book by Barbara Tuchman, p. 534, 1978.

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Kings, Hero, Knowing

  4 Copy quote

• The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Running, War, Poison

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.412, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced

  Barbara Tuchman

  Teaching, Learning, Faculty

  Barbara Tuchman (2015). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.354, Crux Publishing Ltd

  6 Copy quote

• Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Sex, Matter, Sin

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.547, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Believe, Historical, Atheism

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “Practicing History: Selected Essays”, p.34, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Fighting, History, Police

  4 Copy quote

• Of all the ills that our poor ... society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Confusion, Heirs, Absence

  4 Copy quote

• That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Age, Problem, Conflict

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.6, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• To rush in upon an event before its significance has had time to separate from the surrounding circumstances may be enterprising, but is it useful? ... The recent prevalence of these hot histories on publishers' lists raises the question: Should - or perhaps can - history be written while it is still smoking?

  Barbara Tuchman

  History, Smoking, Events

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “Practicing History: Selected Essays”, p.25, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Massacres, Commerce, Zeal

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.202, Random House

  6 Copy quote

• Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.

  Barbara Tuchman

  War, Cost, Pay

  "A Distant Mirror". Book by Barbara Tuchman, p. 81, 1978.

  17 Copy quote

• The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.

  Barbara Tuchman

  War, Years, Unity

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.564, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• While husbands and lovers in the stories are of all kinds, ranging from sympathetic to disgusting, women are invariably deceivers: inconstant, unscrupulous, quarrelsome, querulous, lecherous, shameless, although not necessarily all of these at once.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Husband, Men, Stories

  4 Copy quote

• 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 Tuchman

  War, Europe, World

  4 Copy quote

• To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Responsible, Forgiven, Position

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2009). “The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I; Barbara W. Tuchman's Great War Series”, p.45, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• The open frontier, the hardships of homesteading from scratch, the wealth of natural resources, the whole vast challenge of a continent waiting to be exploited, combined to produce a prevailing materialism and an American drive bent as much, if not more, on money, property, and power than was true of the Old World from which we had fled.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Money, Waiting, Challenges

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “Practicing History: Selected Essays”, p.305, Random House

  63 Copy quote

• The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.

  Barbara Tuchman

  War, Sea, History

  26 Copy quote

• Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Records, Facts, Disaster

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.18, Random House

  4 Copy quote

• His (Deschamps') complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Lying, Government, Common Sense

  Barbara Tuchman (2017). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.539, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard

  Barbara Tuchman

  Past, History, Tree

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “Practicing History: Selected Essays”, p.26, Random House

  18 Copy quote

Page 5 of 6

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin