Barbara W. Tuchman, The March Of Folly: From Troy To Vietnam Quotes
No one is is sure of his premise as the man who knows too little.
To those who think them selves strong, force always seems the easiest solution.
He wanted AFFIRMATION rather than INFORMATION.
One Cardinal entered his cathedral for the first time at his funeral.
Far from a source of suffering, their adopted faith had been a source of power.
That he survived, and indeed returned to government, was one of man's occasional triumphs over medicine.
The limitation prompting folly " was an attitude of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable.
He never hears the truth about himself by not wishing to hear it." Pope Alexander
Enormity of the stakes became the new self-hypnosis.
Policy was not reconsidered because the governing group had no habit of purposeful consultation.
Let us retreat when we can, not when we must. Lord Chatham
Awful momentum makes carrying through easier than calling off folly.
Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all passions.
Why, since folly or perversity is expected of individuals, should we expect anything else from government?
Disorder is the least tolerable up sinful conditions.
Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government.
Prison does not silence ideas whose time has come.
No single characteristic ever overtakes an entire society.
How much does a man's effort depend upon the age in which his work is cast? Pope Clement VII
He was always acting, always enveloping himself in artificiality, perhaps to conceal the volcano within.
The utility of perseverance in absurdity is more than I could ever discern. Edmund Burke
Confronted by menace or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, and drefine it.
House speaker Thomas read could see the trend, but he could not have changed himself.
The process of gaining power employs means which degrade or brutalize the seeker, who awakes to find that power has been possessed at the cost of virtue or moral purpose lost.
Government was rarely more than a choice between the disastrous and the unpalatable.