Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.
Barbara TuchmanIn April 1917 the illusion of isolation was destroyed, America came to the end of innocence, and of the exuberant freedom of bachelor independence. That the responsibilities of world power have not made us happier is no surprise. To help ourselves manage them, we have replaced the illusion of isolation with a new illusion of omnipotence.
Barbara TuchmanOne constant among the elements of 1914โas of any eraโwas 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 TuchmanWe seem to be afflicted by a widespread and eroding reluctance to take any stand on any values, moral, behavioral or esthetic.
Barbara TuchmanIn America, where the electoral process is drowning in commercial techniques of fund-raising and image-making, we may have completed a circle back to a selection process as unconcerned with qualifications as that which made Darius King of Persia. ... he whose horse was the first to neigh at sunrise should be King.
Barbara Tuchman