Barbara Tuchman Quotes - Page 5

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• 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

• 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

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• The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Communism, Communist, Myth

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “Practicing History: Selected Essays”, p.292, Random House

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• Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Christian, Giving, Anxiety

  Barbara Tuchman (2017). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.560, Penguin UK

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• 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

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• Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Self, Numbers, Church

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.487, Random House

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• 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

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• 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

• 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

• 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

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• 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

• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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• bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer, which, once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.

  Barbara Tuchman

  Errors, Yesterday, Forever

  Barbara Tuchman (2015). “The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam”, p.358, Crux Publishing Ltd

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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

• 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

• 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

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• 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

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