276 Quotes by Barbara W. Tuchman

In addition to grand estate, Coucy clearly possessed a personal power of attraction and a faculty for not making enemies.

A reformer exhorted children that they would succeed where he and his colleagues had failed with the charge: “Live for that better day.

Smite a villein and he will bless you; bless a villein and he will smite you.

At Coucy’s level, men and women hawked and hunted and carried a favorite falcon, hooded, on the wrist wherever they went, indoors or out – to church, to the assizes, to meals. On occasion, huge pastries were served from which live birds were released to be caught by hawks unleashed in the banquet.

The wave of insurrection passed, leaving little change in the condition of the working class. Inertia in the scales of history weighs more heavily than change. Four hundred years were to elapse before the descendants of the Maillotins seized the Bastille.

Political balance among the competing groups was unstable because the king had no permanent armed force at his command.

It might be the destiny of the Jewish race,” he said, “to be the bridge between Asia and Europe, to bring the spirituality of Asia to Europe and the vitality of Europe to Asia.” At.

Doctors were admired, lawyers universally hated and mistrusted.

Inevitably, as hatred of monarchy was added to hatred of episcopacy, they were led to republicanism.