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Completeness is rare in history.

Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman
Completeness
Rare
History

More quotes by Barbara Tuchman

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In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law.
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When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
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The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
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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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satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
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If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.
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The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.
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Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
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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.
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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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Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
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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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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
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Governments do not like to face radical remedies it is easier to let politics predominate.
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The nastiness of women [in the 14th century] was generally perceived at the close of life when a man began to worry about hell, and his sexual desire in any case fading.
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Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
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Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
Barbara Tuchman
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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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Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
Barbara Tuchman
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Nothing sickens me more than the closed door of a library.
Barbara Tuchman