01UndatedConfronted 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 / quote ↗
02UndatedThe utility of perseverance in absurdity is more than I could ever discern. Edmund BurkeBarbara W. Tuchman / quote ↗
03UndatedHe was always acting, always enveloping himself in artificiality, perhaps to conceal the volcano within.Barbara W. Tuchman / quote ↗
05UndatedBetween the happening of a historical process and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretches, full of pitfalls.Barbara W. Tuchman / quote ↗
06UndatedI 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 / quote ↗
07UndatedIn writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense.Barbara W. Tuchman / quote ↗
08UndatedIf 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 / quote ↗
11UndatedA 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 / quote ↗
12UndatedBooks are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.Barbara W. Tuchman / quote ↗
13UndatedAn 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 / quote ↗
17UndatedHow much does a man's effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VIIBarbara W. Tuchman / quote ↗
22UndatedAsked 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 / quote ↗
24UndatedAll this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre.Barbara W. Tuchman / quote ↗
