Barbara W. Tuchman Quotes

Most popular Barbara W. Tuchman Quotes

War is the unfolding of miscalculations. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
— Barbara W. Tuchman The Guns of August

war

History is the unfolding of miscalculation. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
History is the unfolding of miscalculation.
— Barbara W. Tuchman

history

Honor wears different coats to different eyes. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
— Barbara W. Tuchman The Guns of August

honor

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
— Barbara W. Tuchman Practicing History

libraries

Satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
Satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
— Barbara W. Tuchman A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

satire

What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
What his imagination is to the poet, facts are to the historian.
— Barbara W. Tuchman The New York Times Book Review

imagination history poets facts

The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
— Barbara W. Tuchman The New York Times Book Review

poets history

Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
— Barbara W. Tuchman Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945

cynical revolution

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.
— Barbara W. Tuchman The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution

power

Wisdom—meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
Wisdom—meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.
— Barbara W. Tuchman Esquire

wisdom

Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all the passions." - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all the passions."
— Barbara W. Tuchman The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

folly power

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others—only to lose it over themselves. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others—only to lose it over themselves.
— Barbara W. Tuchman The March of Folly

folly government

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
— Barbara W. Tuchman

books

There is no such thing as a neutral or purely objective historian. Without an opinion a historian would be simply a ticking clock, and unreadable besides. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
There is no such thing as a neutral or purely objective historian. Without an opinion a historian would be simply a ticking clock, and unreadable besides.
— Barbara W. Tuchman The New York Times Book Review

history

The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair. - Barbara W. Tuchman quote.
The story and study of the past, both recent and distant, will not reveal the future, but it flashes beacon lights along the way and it is a useful nostrum against despair.
— Barbara W. Tuchman Practicing History: Selected Essays

the past

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.
— Barbara W. Tuchman

books