145 Quotes by Barbara Tuchman

While husbands and lovers in the stories [of the 14th century] are of all kinds, ranging from sympathetic to disgusting, women are invariably deceivers: inconstant, unscrupulous, quarrelsome, querulous, lecherous, shameless, although not necessarily all of these at once.

That the Jews were unholy was a belief so ingrained by the Church [by the 14th century] that the most devout persons were the harshest in their antipathy, none more so than St. Louis.

The Church [in the 14th century] gave ceremony and dignity to lives that had little of either. It was the source of beauty and art to which all had some access and which many helped to create.

If wisdom in government eludes us, perhaps courage could substitute-the moral courage to terminate mistakes.

No economic activity was more irrepressible [in the 14th century] than the investment and lending at interest of money; it was the basis for the rise of the Western capitalist economy and the building of private fortunes-and it was based on the sin of usury.

The clergy [in the 14th century] on the whole were probably no more lecherous or greedy or untrustworthy than other men, but because they were supposed to be better or nearer to God than other men, their failings attracted more attention.

Fateful moments tend to evoke grandeur of speech, especially in French.

The reality of a question is inevitably more complicated than we would like to suppose.

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