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 TuchmanThe 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 TuchmanGovernment remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.
Barbara Tuchman