Top 80 Barbara Tuchman Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Human beings of any age need to approve of themselves; the bad times in history come when they cannot.”

— Barbara Tuchman

52. “To be a bestseller is not necessarily a measure of quality, but it is a measure of communication.”

— Barbara Tuchman

53. “Completeness is rare in history...”

— Barbara Tuchman

54. “Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.”

— Barbara Tuchman

55. “Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.”

— Barbara Tuchman

56. “Money was the crux. Raising money to pay the cost of war was to cause more damage to 14th century society than the physical destruction of war itself.”

— Barbara Tuchman

57. “The fact of being reported increases the apparent extent of a deplorable development by a factor of ten.”

— Barbara Tuchman

58. “If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.”

— Barbara Tuchman

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

— Barbara Tuchman

60. “No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.”

— Barbara Tuchman

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

— Barbara Tuchman

62. “One constant among the elements of 1914 – as of any era – was the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.”

— Barbara Tuchman

63. “If all were equalized by death, as the medieval idea constantly emphasized, was it not possible that inequalities on earth were contrary to the will of God?”

— Barbara Tuchman

64. “Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.”

— Barbara Tuchman

65. “Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.”

— Barbara Tuchman

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

— Barbara Tuchman

67. “Russians, in the knowledge of inexhaustible supplies of manpower, are accustomed to accepting gigantic fatalities with comparative calm.”

— Barbara Tuchman

68. “No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe.”

— Barbara Tuchman

69. “We seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.”

— Barbara Tuchman

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

— Barbara Tuchman

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

— Barbara Tuchman

72. “Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.”

— Barbara Tuchman

73. “Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place.”

— Barbara Tuchman

74. “Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.”

— Barbara Tuchman

75. “If I had taken a doctoral degree, it would have stifled any writing capacity.”

— Barbara Tuchman

76. “The Germans could not get over the perfidy of it. It was unbelievable that the English, having degenerated to the stage where suffragettes heckled the Prime Minister and defied the police, were going to fight.”

— Barbara Tuchman

77. “To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.”

— Barbara Tuchman

78. “Historians who stuff in every item of research they have found, every shoelace and telephone call of a biographical subject, are not doing the hard work of selecting and shaping a readable story.”

— Barbara Tuchman

79. “The social damage was not in the failure but in the undertaking, which was expensive. The cost of war was the poison running through the 14th century.”

— Barbara Tuchman

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

— Barbara Tuchman

81. “Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels.”

— Barbara Tuchman

82. “Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.”

— Barbara Tuchman

83. “Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.”

— Barbara Tuchman

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

— Barbara Tuchman

85. “Reasonable orders are easy enough to obey; it is capricious, bureaucratic or plain idiotic demands that form the habit of discipline.”

— Barbara Tuchman

86. “I have always been in a condition in which I cannot not write.”

— Barbara Tuchman