Barbara W. Tuchman

How much does a man's effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VII

If it was bliss to be alive, to hunt was rapture.

Isolation might be more hazardous than splendor.

He had been present in their minds not as a man but as an idea.

An event of great agony is bearable only in the belief that it will bring about a better world. When it does not, as in the aftermath of another vast calamity in 1914-18, disillusion is deep and moves on to self-doubt and self-disgust.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?

Even his own speeches bored him.

They resented the patronage they depended upon.

In writing I am seduced by the sound of words and by the interaction of their sound and sense.

If the historian will submit himself to his material instead of trying to impose himself on his material, then the material will ultimately speak to him and supply the answers.

Between the happening of a historical process and its recognition by rulers, a lag stretches, full of pitfalls.

I will only mention that the independent power of words to affect the writing of history is a thing to be watched out for. They have an almost frightening autonomous power to produce in the mind of the reader an image or idea that was not in the mind of the writer. Obviously they operate this way in all forms of writing, but history is particularly sensitive because one has a duty to be accurate, and careless use of words can leave a false impression one had not intended.

Connection" was the cement of the governing class.

The utility of perseverance in absurdity is more than I could ever discern. Edmund Burke

He was always acting, always enveloping himself in artificiality, perhaps to conceal the volcano within.

Confronted by menace or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, and drefine it.

Duty was not untinged by ambition.