Barbara Tuchman

War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.

The fleet sailed to its war base in the North Sea, headed not so much for some rendezvous with glory as for rendezvous with discretion.

No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse.