145 Quotes by Barbara Tuchman

Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government, and when combined with a position of power even more so.

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.

satire is a wrapping of exaggeration around a core of reality.

The conduct of war was so much more interesting than its prevention.

Wisdom - meaning judgment acting on experience, common sense, available knowledge, and a decent appreciation of probability.

No female iniquity was more severely condemned [in the 14th century] than the habit of plucking eyebrows and the hairline to heighten the forehead.

Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled.

When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.

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.