Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.
Barbara Tuchman
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Barbara Tuchman
Motor
Sin
Sex
Christianity
However
Mankind
Vainglory
Matter
Insisted
Much
Medieval
More quotes by Barbara Tuchman
The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.
Barbara Tuchman
Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
Barbara Tuchman
The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.
Barbara Tuchman
No nation in the world has so many drastic problems squeezed into so small a space, under such urgent pressure of time and heavy burden of history, as Israel.
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.
Barbara Tuchman
Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
Barbara Tuchman
Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
Barbara Tuchman
If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
Barbara Tuchman
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
Barbara Tuchman
The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
Barbara Tuchman
No female iniquity was more severely condemned than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead.
Barbara Tuchman
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
Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
Barbara Tuchman
To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.
Barbara Tuchman
To gain victory over the flesh was the purpose of fasting and celibacy, which denied the pleasures of this world for the sake of reward in the next.
Barbara Tuchman
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
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
Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.
Barbara Tuchman
satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
Barbara Tuchman
To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.
Barbara Tuchman