Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait Of The World Before The War, 1890-1914 Quotes
The affair made men feel larger than life.
When meeting criticism, he would regard it not as something to resent but as a thing to be examined, like an interesting beetle. "That's a curious view, not uninteresting.
In proportion that property is small, the danger of misusing the franchisee is great.
Our misconception in viewing the past lies in assuming that doubt and fear, permit, protests, violence and hate were not equally present.
One English nobleman and statesman read and reread a particular work of literature because it was "the only book which allowed him to forget politics.
His only weakness was the habit of prophesying war within the next fortnight. George Bernard Shaw
He accomplished wonders of diplomacy on the principle, never give way, and never give offense.
England's traditional tolerance was outraged at last.
His one essay in love had exhausted his powers in that direction.
He believed that rank without power was a sham.
Advice to young Samuel Gompers that might apply in many other areas: "Learn from socialism, but don't join it.
He believed interim reforms were necessary in order to fix the worker for his destiny.
If they are afraid of revision in the laboratory, truth will never be released except by accident.
The love of humanity does not prevent us from being good journalists.
He seemed less in need of a secretary than of someone to listen to him.
Each one of us is serious individually, but together we become frivolous.
He was always the bridge, between men as well as between ideas.
Talent for oratory can simulate the need for action and even thought.
As there would be no more inheritance, there would be no more greed. Peter Kropotkin
Proper society did not think about MAKING money, only about spending it.
The Englishman, as an American observed, felt himself the best-governed citizen in the world, even when in opposition he believed the incumbents were ruining the country.
Society's revenge matched its fright.
He had become, through a combination of heritage and character, a keeper of the national conscience.
Isolation might be more hazardous than splendor.
William McKinley was a man made to be managed.
What other country has had the privilege of making the world's heart beat faster?
Diplomacy's primary law: LEAVE ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION.
The art of oratory was considered part of the equipment of a statesman.
The author says one patrician English leader saw his relationship with the populace thusly: He wasn't responsible TO them. He was responsible FOR them. He was responsible for their care.
A minister's (cabinet member's) function was not to DO the work but to see that it got done.
Duty was not untinged by ambition.
Britain had an air of careless supremacy which GALLED her neighbors.
Even his own speeches bored him.
He had been present in their minds not as a man but as an idea.
Everything interested him and everything excited him.
If it was bliss to be alive, to hunt was rapture.
The scene is France. The theater is the world.
Malignant phenomena do not come out of a golden age.
Asked what would be his idea of Heaven, one statesman in 1897 said it would be to "receive a flow of telegrams alternating news of a British victory by sea and a British victory by land.
The tribal pull of patriotism could have no better testimony.
All this visible greatness was really one with Nineveh and Tyre.
Even the respectable have a small anarchist hidden on the inside.
Everything took on the color of blood.
The overpowering unimportance of this MAKES ME SPEECHLESS. – Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas Reed
Humanizing war?! You may as well talk of humanizing Hell. Sir John Fisher