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Historians who stuff in every item of research they have found, every shoelace and telephone call of a biographical subject, are not doing the hard work of selecting and shaping a readable story.

Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman
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More quotes by Barbara Tuchman

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Human behavior is timeless.
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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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Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.
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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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Friendship of a kind that cannot easily be reversed tomorrow must have its roots in common interests and shared beliefs.
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When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
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To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.
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The writer's object is - or should be - to hold the reader's attention.
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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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To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.
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Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
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Completeness is rare in history.
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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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Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.
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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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Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.
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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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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.
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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
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The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
Barbara Tuchman