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The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.

Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman
Costliest
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If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power, with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements,corrupts even more.
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Above all, discard the irrelevant.
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One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.
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That the Jews were unholy was a belief so ingrained by the Church [by the 14th century] that the most devout persons were the harshest in their antipathy, none more so than St. Louis.
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Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
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Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.
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Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
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Governments do not like to face radical remedies it is easier to let politics predominate.
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Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
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Completeness is rare in history.
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To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
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satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
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When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
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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.
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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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