Barbara W. Tuchman Quotes

Nothing is more certain than death and nothing uncertain but its hour.

What is government but an arrangement by which the many accept the authority of the few?

That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.

To admit error and cut losses is rare among individuals, unknown among states.

If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.

For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.

Whatever the fiasco, aplomb is unbroken. Mistakes, failures, stupidities and other causes of disaster mysteriously vanish. Disasters are recorded with care and pride and become transmuted into things of beauty. Official histories record every move in monumental and infinite detail but the details serve to obscure.

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

When reproached for spending too much time with books and clerks, Charles answered, “As long as knowledge is honored in this country, so long will it prosper.”

Chroniclers habitually matched numbers to the awesomeness of the event.

History is the unfolding of miscalculations.

When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.

Perhaps by this time the 14th century was not quite sane. If enlightened self-interest is the criterion of sanity, in the verdict of Michelet, “no epoch was more naturally mad.”