145 Quotes by Barbara Tuchman

The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard.

An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.

When people don’t have an objective, there’s much less dynamic effort, and that makes life a lot less interesting.

The writer’s object is – or should be – to hold the reader’s attention.

Learning from experience is a faculty almost never practiced.

To put away one’s own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

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

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

Human beings, like plans, prove fallible in the presence of those ingredients that are missing in maneuvers – danger, death, and live ammunition.