Barbara Tuchman Quotes

A hedge knight must hold tight to his pride. Without it, he was no more than a sellsword

The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like young Lochinvar.

Through this same man and me hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for through our love that we have loved together is my most noble lord slain.

The knight is a man of blood and iron, a man familiar with the sight of smashed faces and the ragged stumps of lopped-off limbs; he is also a demure, almost a maidenlike, guest in hall, a gentle, modest, unobtrusive man. He is not a compromise or happy mean between ferocity and meekness; he is fierce to the nth and meek to the nth.

Chivalry - ...a romantic idealism closely related to Christianity, which makes honor the guiding principle of conduct. Connected with this is the ancient concept of the gentleman.

He loved chivalrye Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye.

Women encourage killers. They do it by falling in love with warriors and heroes. Men know it and respond with enthusiasm. The Crusaders marched off to war with ladies favors in their helmets. The heroes sliced up adults and baked infants on spits, all the while thinking of how the damsels back home would admire their bravery.

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of Lochinvar.

And the mystery knight should defeat all challengers and name the wolf maid the queen of love and beauty.

Knighthood lies above eternity; it doesn’t live off fame, but rather deeds.

This knight was indeed a valiant gentleman; but not a little given to romance, when he spake of himself.

The signs of the Vietnam War protestors said "Make Love not War!" It didn't seem to me that they were capable of either.

"War gives men a plain-and-simple something to do ... Women write diaries in the hope that their words will beckon fate." It's a romantic manifesto.

We must love men more than things, and I admire and weep more for the soldiers than for the churches which were only the recording of an heroic gesture which today is reenacted at every moment.

Only the power of unbounded love practiced in regard to all human beings can defeat the forces of interhuman strife, and can prevent the pending extermination of man by man on this planet. Without love, no armament, no war, no diplomatic machinations, no coercive police force, no school education, no economic or political measures, not even hydrogen bombs can prevent the pending catastrophe.

How can I, that girl standing there, My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics? Yet here's a travelled man that knows What he talks about, And there's a politician That has read and thought, And maybe what they say is true Of war and war's alarms, But O that I were young again And held her in my arms!

Why are you doing this? (Rafael) Because life’s too short to spend it fighting when you could be holding the one you love. And love’s too rare to squander it with petty concerns. I’m lucky I have Chloe and I have no intention of letting a war I didn’t start rob me of one second of my time with her. Go in peace, Dark-Hunter. (Apollite)

People notice peacemakers because they dress funny. We know how the people who make war dress - in uniforms and medals, or in computers and clipboards, or in absoluteness, severity, greed, and cynicism. But the peacemaker is dressed in righteousness, justice, and faithfulness - dressed for the work that is to be done.

We've trained and trained for a reason: to be better at the craft of war than our enemy, to use our skill to perform the mission, and to accept the risks. As American warriors, it's our obligation to protect the innocent. And that means, sometimes, that we're the ones who need to be put on the disadvantaged side of the threat cycle.

Heterosexual love,. is in sync with cosmic forces. Not everyone has the stomach for daily war with nature.

I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.

We of Macedon for generations past have been trained in the hard school of danger and war

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger.

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind. In this sense the most insignificant writer can serve peace, where the most powerful tribunals can do nothing.