Barbara Tuchman Quotes

Power is what spoils people. Yes, it seems to me that the seeking after power is the great danger and the great corruptor of mankind.

It's human nature to abuse power, no matter who you are.

What worries me most about Trump, other than all of the other crazy things, is that I believe that he wants power and I believe from my point of view that power corrupts, and that the whole purpose of our founding fathers and America was to contain power.

My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.

Our wise founders seemed to understand, better than most of us, our own scripture, which states that ‘it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority … they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.’

We are used to the actions of human beings, not to their stillness.

The shortest way to change a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows.

Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion.

The important thing about human beings is not what they do, but why they do it.

Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and ’tis Injustice to infringe her Laws.

Man is not by nature a tyrant, but becomes a tyrant by power conferred on him.

Thought is the organizing factor in man, intersected between the causal primary instincts and the resulting actions.

That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they're still human.

Man is, perhaps, no more prone to war than he used to be and no more inclined to commit other evil deeds. But a given amount of ill will or folly will go further than it used to.

We have once again succeeded in destroying what we could not create.

The cynic puts all human actions into two classes - openly bad and secretly bad.

A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired. This maxim, drawn from the experience of all ages, makes it the height of folly to intrust any set of men with power which is not under every possible control; perpetual strides are made after more as long as there is any part withheld.

I think that Utopia is a theory of human action.

Whenever the powers of government are placed in any hands other than those of the community, whether those of one man, of a few, or of several, those principles of human nature which imply that government is at all necessary, imply that those persons will make use of them to defeat the very end for which government exists.

Tyrants forego all respect for humanity in proportion as they are sunk beneath it. Taught to believe themselves of a different species, they really become so, lose their participation with their kind, and in mimicking the god dwindle into the brute.

I am more and more convinced, of the propensity in human nature to tyranize over their fellow men.

There are 7 billion people on the planet. Pretty much everyone is doing sex. It's not like you need to order the "baby-starter kit" on Amazon. Instincts will come to you at the weirdest places and times.

The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power are examples. The daimonic can be either creative or destructive and is normally both.

It is quite impossible to understand the character of a person from one action, however striking that action may be.

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.