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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.

Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman
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More quotes by Barbara Tuchman

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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.
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One constant among the elements of 1914—as of any era—was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
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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.
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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.
Barbara Tuchman
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satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
Barbara Tuchman
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One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.
Barbara Tuchman
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When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
Barbara Tuchman
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If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
Barbara Tuchman
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Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
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Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.
Barbara Tuchman
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Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.
Barbara Tuchman
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Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
Barbara Tuchman
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Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
Barbara Tuchman
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Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.
Barbara Tuchman
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No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.
Barbara Tuchman
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Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
Barbara Tuchman
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To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
Barbara Tuchman
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In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.
Barbara Tuchman
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Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.
Barbara Tuchman
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Completeness is rare in history.
Barbara Tuchman