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Of all the ills that our poor ... society is heir to, the focal one, it seems to me, from which so much of our uneasiness and confusion derive, is the absence of standards.

Barbara Tuchman

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Barbara Tuchman
Seems
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Absence
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Books are humanity in print.
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The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.
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Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex.
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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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Governments do not like to face radical remedies it is easier to let politics predominate.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Business, like a jackal, trotted on the heels of war.
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To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.
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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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The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.
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Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced
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To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.
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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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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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Honor wears different coats to different eyes.
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Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.
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When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.
Barbara Tuchman