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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.

Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman
Evoke
Grandeur
French
Tend
Speech
Especially
Moments
Fateful

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Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.
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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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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.
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Books are humanity in print.
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I ask myself, have nations ever declined from a loss of moral sense rather than from physical reasons or the pressure of barbarians? I think that they have.
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While husbands and lovers in the stories are of all kinds, ranging from sympathetic to disgusting, women are invariably deceivers: inconstant, unscrupulous, quarrelsome, querulous, lecherous, shameless, although not necessarily all of these at once.
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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 They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.
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If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
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If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
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Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
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