Barbara Tuchman Quotes - Page 2

No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.

When people don't have an objective, there's much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.

Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.

The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.

Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.

Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.

In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law.

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.

in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight

In April 1917 the illusion of isolation was destroyed, America came to the end of innocence, and of the exuberant freedom of bachelor independence. That the responsibilities of world power have not made us happier is no surprise. To help ourselves manage them, we have replaced the illusion of isolation with a new illusion of omnipotence.

Above all, discard the irrelevant.

In the midst of events there is no perspective.

Human behavior is timeless.

Wisdom - meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.

The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.

Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all the passions." Because it can only be satisfied by power over others, government is its favorite field of exercise. Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.

Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.

Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.

Honor wears different coats to different eyes.

One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.

When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.

After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena.

Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.

When the gap between ideal and real becomes too wide, the system breaks down.