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

Books are humanity in print.
Barbara Tuchman

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
Barbara Tuchman

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

Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed.
Barbara Tuchman

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
Barbara Tuchman

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