145 Quotes by Barbara Tuchman

The Hundred Years' War, like the crises of the Church in the same period, broke apart medieval unity.

It is wiser, I believe, to arrive at theory by way of evidence rather than the other way around.... It is more rewarding, in any case, to assemble the facts first and, in the process of arranging them in narrative form, to discover a theory or a historical generalization emerging of its own accord.

bureaucracy, safely repeating today what it did yesterday, rolls on as ineluctably as some vast computer, which, once penetrated by error, duplicates it forever.

The costliest myth of our time has been the myth of the Communist monolith.

The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.

Completeness is rare in history ...

The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians ...