Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Tuchman
Barbara Wertheim Tuchmanwas an American historian and author. She won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Guns of August, a best-selling history of the prelude to and the first month of World War I, and Stilwell and the American Experience in China, a biography of General Joseph Stilwell...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth30 January 1912
CountryUnited States of America
eye honor different
Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
technology use purpose
For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
age needs bad-times
Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.
teacher book humanity
Books are ... companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of mind. Books are humanity in print.
missing ingredients danger
Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers - danger, death, and live ammunition.
government decision faces
No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.
kings hero knowing
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.
writing want pages
I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning to the end.
sex matter sin
Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.
children light law
To ensure that no one gained an advantage over anyone else, commercial law [in the 14th century] prohibited innovation in tools or techniques, underselling below a fixed price, working late by artificial light, employing extra apprentices or wife and underage children, and advertising of wares or praising them to the detriment of others.
women worry desire
The nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.
reality complicated
The reality of a question is inevitably more complicated than we would like to suppose.
interesting people effort
When people don't have an objective, there's much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.
successful tyrants revolution
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.