Quote

satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.

Barbara Tuchman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Barbara Tuchman
Wrapping
Exaggeration
Satire
Core
Reality
Around

More quotes by Barbara Tuchman

Image
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
Image
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
Image
Belgium, where there occurred one of the rare appearances of the hero in history, was lifted above herself by the uncomplicated conscience of her King and, faced with the choice to acquiesce or resist, took less than three hours to make her decision, knowing it might be mortal.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
In America, where the electoral process is drowning in commercial techniques of fund-raising and image-making, we may have completed a circle back to a selection process as unconcerned with qualifications as that which made Darius King of Persia. ... he whose horse was the first to neigh at sunrise should be King.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
Human behavior is timeless.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
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.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
Completeness is rare in history.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
To be right and overruled is not forgiven to persons in responsible positions.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
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.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
No female iniquity was more severely condemned than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
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
Image
Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
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
Image
Books are humanity in print.
Barbara Tuchman