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Quote by Barbara Tuchman

“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.”

Quote by Barbara Tuchman

Author

Barbara Tuchman

Barbara Tuchman was an American historian renowned for her in-depth research and vivid narrative style. Her works covered historical events from the Roman Empire to the 20th century, with 'Guns, Germs, and Steel' and 'The Guns of August' being particularly notable. more

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“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.”

Source: The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

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

Government Menace

Book:The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

Source: The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam

“Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.”

Has Beens Facts Seems Records Accounts Disaster Sporadic

Book:A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

Source: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century

“For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in.”

Has Beens House Leaving Cards Companion Working Life

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“Historians who stuff in every item of research they have found, every shoelace and telephone call of a biographical subject, are not doing the hard work of selecting and shaping a readable story.”

Hard Stories Found Stuff Subjects Hard Work Research Historian Telephones Items Shoelaces

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“I have always felt like an artist when I work on a book. I see no reason why the word should always be confined to writers of fiction and poetry.”

Should Book Reason Artist Felt Fiction Reason Why No Reason Confined

Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays

Source: Practicing History: Selected Essays

“Of all the ills that our poor ... society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards.”

Seems Poor Standards Absence Confusion Heirs Uneasiness

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.”

Men Said Talent Ought Smart Opponents Remarkable Rome Rulers Resorts Governing Assassination

Author:Barbara Tuchman

“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.”

Way Stories Light Past Study Despair Flash Beacons

Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays

Source: Practicing History: Selected Essays

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

Should Attention Objects Reader

Book:Practicing History: Selected Essays

Source: Practicing History: Selected Essays