Quote

One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.

Barbara Tuchman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Barbara Tuchman
Stop
Must
Never
Conducting
Finish
Otherwise
Finished
Research

More quotes by Barbara Tuchman

Image
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
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
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 They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.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
Image
The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.
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
Woman was the Church's rival, the temptress, the distraction, the obstacle to holiness, the Devil's decoy.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
Human behavior is timeless.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.
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
In the United States we have a society pervaded from top to bottom by contempt for the law.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
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
Image
To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
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.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
Barbara Tuchman
Image
To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
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