Quotessence
Home / Authors / Barbara Tuchman Books
Barbara Tuchman

Barbara Tuchman Books

Historian

Related Quotes

“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. They are engines of change (as the poet said), windows on the world and lighthouses erected in the sea of time. They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print. [Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Nov. 1980), pp. 16-32]”

MindHumanityLiteratureBooksCivilizationThought
Author:Barbara Tuchman
Create image

“His (Deschamps') complaint of court life was the same as is made of government at the top in any age: it was composed of hypocrisy, flattery, lying, paying and betraying; it was where calumny and cupidity reigned, common sense lacked, truth dared not appear, and where to survive one had to be deaf, blind, and dumb.”

MadeGovernmentAgeLyingCommonBlindCourtCommon SenseDumbHypocrisyBetrayComplaintsFlatteryDeafCalumny
Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
Create image

“The ills and disorders of the 14th century could not be without consequence. Times were to grow worse over the next fifty-odd years until at some imperceptible moment, by the some mysterious chemistry, energies were refreshed, ideas broke out of the mold of the Middle Ages into new realms, and humanity found itself redirected.”

YearsIdeasMomentsAgeHumanityNextFoundEnergyGrowsMiddleCenturyConsequenceMysteriousBrokeOddRealmsFiftyChemistryDisorderMiddle AgesMold
Author:Barbara Tuchman
Create image

“In the search for meaning we must not forget that the gods (or God, for that matter) are a concept of the human mind; they are the creatures of man, not vice versa. They are needed and invented to give meaning and purpose to the struggle that is life on Earth, to explain strange and irregular phenomena of nature, haphazard events and, above all, irrational human conduct. They exist to bear the burden of all things that cannot be comprehended except by supernatural intervention or design.”

MenGivingMindHumansMatterEarthPurposeForgetStruggleAtheismEventsDesignStrangeBearsNeededCreaturesConceptsAll ThingsVicesBurdenPositive AtheismHuman MindIrrationalInterventionVice VersaSearch For MeaningHaphazard
Author:Barbara Tuchman
Create image

“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.”

WayFirstsBelieveFactsFormI BelieveProcessCasesAtheismTheoryEvidenceHistoricalPositive AtheismNarrativeWiserAccordEmergingGeneralizationArranging
Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays
Create image

“In America, where the electoral process is drowning in commercial techniques of fund-raising and image-making, we may have completed a circle back to a selection process as unconcerned with qualifications as that which made Darius King of Persia. ... he whose horse was the first to neigh at sunrise should be King.”

ShouldFirstsMayMadeGovernmentAmericaPoliticsProcessKingsHorseTechniqueCirclesFundSunriseSelectionDrowningQualificationsPersiaUnconcernedElectoral ProcessDarius
Author:Barbara Tuchman
Create image

“Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts.”

ThinkingSelfPlayFactsGovernmentWishTermActingSituationRolesSourceNotionOneselfContraryFactorsDeceptionFixedAllowingSelf DeceptionWishful ThinkingRejectingAssessing
Book:The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
Create image

“Policy is formed by preconceptions, by long implanted biases. When information is relayed to policy-makers, they respond in terms of what is already inside their heads and consequently make policy less to fit the facts than to fit the notions and intentions formed out of the mental baggage that has accumulated in their minds since childhood.”

MindLongFactsGovernmentTermChildhoodInformationPolicyFitIntentionNotionMakersBaggagePreconceptionsPolicy Makers
Author:Barbara Tuchman
Create image

“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?”

ShouldMayStillsHistoryWrittenEventsCircumstancesHotRaisesListsSmokingSignificancePublishersEnterprising
Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays
Create image