Barbara W. Tuchman quotes are thought-provoking, memorable and inspiring. From views on society and politics to thoughts on love and life, Barbara W. Tuchman has a lot to say. In this list we present the 103 best Barbara W. Tuchman quotes, in no particular order. Let yourself get inspired!
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Barbara W. Tuchman quotes
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, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
Everything interested him and everything excited him.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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.
— Barbara W. Tuchman
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 was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Now according to German logic, a declaration of war was found to be unnecessary because of imaginary bombings
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August
Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as “the most flagrant of all passions.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
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, Practicing History: Selected Essays
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, Practicing History: Selected Essays
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, Practicing History: Selected Essays
Government was rarely more than a choice between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
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, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
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, The Guns of August
William McKinley was a man made to be managed.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
House speaker Thomas read could see the trend, but he could not have changed himself.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
What other country has had the privilege of making the world’s heart beat faster?
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Diplomacy’s primary law: LEAVE ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
The art of oratory was considered part of the equipment of a statesman.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
A minister’s (cabinet member’s) function was not to DO the work but to see that it got done.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Duty was not untinged by ambition.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Britain had an air of careless supremacy which GALLED her neighbors.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
The utility of perseverance in absurdity is more than I could ever discern. Edmund Burke
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
He was always acting, always enveloping himself in artificiality, perhaps to conceal the volcano within.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Connection” was the cement of the governing class.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Between the happening of a historical process and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretches, full of pitfalls.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
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, Practicing History: Selected Essays
In writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, Practicing History: Selected Essays
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, Practicing History: Selected Essays
They resented the patronage they depended upon.
— Barbara W. Tuchman
Even his own speeches bored him.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
— Barbara W. Tuchman
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, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
He had been present in their minds not as a man but as an idea.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Isolation might be more hazardous than splendor.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
If it was bliss to be alive, to hunt was rapture.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
How much does a man’s effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VII
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
No single characteristic ever overtakes an entire society.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Prison does not silence ideas whose time has come.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
The scene is France. The theater is the world.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Malignant phenomena do not come out of a golden age.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
The tribal pull of patriotism could have no better testimony.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Disorder is the least tolerable up sinful conditions.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Why, since folly or perversity is expected of individuals, should we expect anything else from government?
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Irritability was an occupational disease. Intolerant and intolerable belong in the same category.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The First Salute
Even the respectable have a small anarchist hidden on the inside.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Everything took on the color of blood.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
The overpowering unimportance of this MAKES ME SPEECHLESS. – Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Reed
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Humanizing war?! You may as well talk of humanizing Hell. Sir John Fisher
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
No one is is sure of his premise as the man who knows too little.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
If they are afraid of revision in the laboratory, truth will never be released except by accident.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Awful momentum makes carrying through easier than calling off folly.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
The fate of warnings in political affairs is to be futile when the recipient wishes otherwise.
— Barbara W. Tuchman
He had the ruthlessness of uninterrupted success.
— Barbara W. Tuchman
Let us retreat when we can, not when we must. Lord Chatham
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Folly is a child of power.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Policy was not reconsidered because the governing group had no habit of purposeful consultation.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
In proportion that property is small, the danger of misusing the franchisee is great.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Enormity of the stakes became the new self-hypnosis.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
His only weakness was the habit of prophesying war within the next fortnight. George Bernard Shaw
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
He never hears the truth about himself by not wishing to hear it.” Pope Alexander
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
The limitation prompting folly ” was an attitude of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
He accomplished wonders of diplomacy on the principle, never give way, and never give offense.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
That he survived, and indeed returned to government, was one of man’s occasional triumphs over medicine.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
England’s traditional tolerance was outraged at last.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
His one essay in love had exhausted his powers in that direction.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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, The Guns of August
A great imperative imparts a wonderful impulse to the spirit.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The First Salute
These cumbersome vehicles were as convenient as if dinosaurs had survived to be used by cowboys for driving cattle
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The First Salute
The greatness of the object enabled my mind to support what my strengths of body was scarce equal to.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The First Salute
He believed that rank without power was a sham.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Advice to young Samuel Gompers that might apply in many other areas: “Learn from socialism, but don’t join it.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
He believed interim reforms were necessary in order to fix the worker for his destiny.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
The affair made men feel larger than life.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Far from a source of suffering, their adopted faith had been a source of power.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
One Cardinal entered his cathedral for the first time at his funeral.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
He wanted AFFIRMATION rather than INFORMATION.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
The love of humanity does not prevent us from being good journalists.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
He seemed less in need of a secretary than of someone to listen to him.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Each one of us is serious individually, but together we become frivolous.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
He was always the bridge, between men as well as between ideas.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Clearly prize money received more serious attention than scurvy or signals.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The First Salute
Talent for oratory can simulate the need for action and even thought.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
As there would be no more inheritance, there would be no more greed. Peter Kropotkin
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Proper society did not think about MAKING money, only about spending it.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
Civilians who volunteer generally wish to escape, not to share, privatizations worse than their own.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The First Salute
Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August
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, The First Salute
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, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
To those who think them selves strong, force always seems the easiest solution.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Society’s revenge matched its fright.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
He had become, through a combination of heritage and character, a keeper of the national conscience.
— Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914
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