To put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost. – Barbara Tuchman
Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline. – Barbara Tuchman
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. – Barbara Tuchman
Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism. – Barbara Tuchman
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard. – Barbara Tuchman
No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision. – Barbara Tuchman
For me, the card catalog has been a companion all my working life. To leave it is like leaving the house one was brought up in. – Barbara Tuchman
Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed. – Barbara Tuchman
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
