Barbara W. Tuchman Quotes
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The real reason for his attitude lay deeper. Essentially, Gloucester and the barons of his party were opposed to peace because they felt war to be their occupation. Behind them were the poorer knights and squires and archers of England, who, unconcerned with rights or wrongs, were 'inclined to war such as had been their livelihood.'
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In individuals as in nations, contentment is silent, which tends to unbalance the historical record.
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For belligerent purposes, the 14th century, like the 20th, commanded a technology more sophisticated than the mental and moral capacity that guided its use.
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History is the unfolding of miscalculations.
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When commerce with Moslems flourished, zeal for their massacre declined.
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Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.
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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.
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Nothing is more certain than death and nothing uncertain but its hour.
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The emphasis on sorcery reflected accusations by the authorities more than it did actual practice. Being threatened, the Church responded by virulent persecution.
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Against men habituated to lawless force, violent punishment failed to bring the violence under control.
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To put on the garment of legitimacy is the first aim of every coup.
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What counts is not so much the fact as what the public perceives to be the fact.
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If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.
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When reproached for spending too much time with books and clerks, Charles answered, 'As long as knowledge is honored in this country, so long will it prosper.'
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Doctrine tied itself into infinite knots over the realities of sex.
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Economic man and sensual man are not suppressible.
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That conflict between the reach for the divine and the lure of earthly things was to be the central problem of the Middle Ages.
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Modern historians have suggested that in his last years he (Richard II) was overtaken by mental disease, but that is only a modern view of the malfunction common to 14th century rulers: inability to inhibit impulse.
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Chroniclers habitually matched numbers to the awesomeness of the event.
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Perhaps by this time the 14th century was not quite sane. If enlightened self-interest is the criterion of sanity, in the verdict of Michelet, 'no epoch was more naturally mad.'