Quotes from Barbara W. Tuchman

Expenditure of money by commoners pained the nobles not least because they saw it benefiting the merchant class rather than themselves.

Cognitive dissonance is the tendency "to suppress, gloss over, water down or 'waffle' issues which would produce conflict or 'psychological pain' within an organization.

the two lights of the world.

The cutting off of Russia with all its consequences, the vain and sanguinary tragedy of Gallipoli, the diversion of Allied strength in the campaigns of Mesopotamia, Suez, and Palestine, the ultimate breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the subsequent history of the Middle East, followed from the voyage of the Goeben.

It is very difficult for a recipient of secret information to believe its validity when it does not conform to his preconceived plans or ideas; he believes what he wants to believe and rejects what does not verify what he already knows, or thinks he knows.

But once divinity of doctrine has been questioned there is no return to perfect faith.

Supposed to be commissioned by the Church, the pardoners would sell absolution for any sin from gluttony to homicide, cancel any vow of chastity or fasting, remit any penance for money, most of which they pocketed.

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

The cutting off of Russia with all its consequences, the vain and sanguinary tragedy of Gallipoli, the diversion of Allied strength in the campaigns of Mesopotamia, Suez, and Palestine, the ultimate breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the subsequent history of the Middle East, followed from the voyage of the Goeben. Other

The Battle of the Marne was one of the decisive battles of the world not because it determined that Germany would ultimately lose or the Allies ultimately win the war but because it determined that the war would go on.

the power to command frequently causes failure to think;

As there would be no more inheritance, there would be no more greed. Peter Kropotkin

How narrow he makes the street look!" a passer-by once exclaimed.

Theory, however, bends to convenience,

nuns of the Hôtel Dieu or municipal hospital, "having no fear of death, tended the sick with all sweetness and humility.

providing outdoor relief for the aristocracy"; some were as fervent imperialists as the Tories. Some were Church of England, some Nonconformist, some Home Rulers, some unalterably opposed to Home Rule. Some were ardent Radicals dedicated to redistribution of wealth and political power, some were magnates of industry absorbed in making fortunes. Those who were Liberals from conviction rather than from family tradition

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

Nothing so comforts the military mind as the maxim of a great but dead general.

Dead battles, like dead generals, hold the military mind in their dead grip.

I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning until the end.

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

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

The fate of warnings in political affairs is to be futile when the recipient wishes otherwise.