War is the unfolding of miscalculations.
Interpretation
War often results from a series of errors in judgment and decision-making.
This quote by Barbara Tuchman suggests that war does not arise spontaneously or merely from conflict, but is instead the product of a chain of miscalculations made by leaders and nations. These miscalculations can encompass poor strategic decisions, misunderstandings, and failures to foresee consequences, highlighting the complexity and the tragic nature of human conflict.
In practice
Using this quote during a history lecture on World War I to illustrate the complexities of historical decisions.
In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.
When every autumn people said it could not last through the winter, and when every spring there was still no end in sight, only the hope that out of it all some good would accrue to mankind kept men and nations fighting. When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion.
One constant among the elements of 1914βas of any eraβwas the disposition of everyone on all sides not to prepare for the harder alternative, not to act upon what they suspected to be true.
Nothing is more satisfying than to write a good sentence. It is no fun to write lumpishly, dully, in prose the reader must plod through like wet sand. But it is a pleasure to achieve, if one can, a clear running prose that is simple yet full of surprises. This does not just happen. It requires skill, hard work, a good ear, and continued practice.
The unrecorded past is none other than our old friend, the tree in the primeval forest which fell without being heard
Theology being the work of males, original sin was traced to the female.
The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
You have to ask yourself the question 'Who am I?' This investigation will lead in the end to the discovery of something within you which is behind the mind. Solve that great problem and you will solve all other problems.
We used to look at each other and say, 'We play the same game with the same rules, the same bat, the same ball, the same field. What the hell does color have to do with it? You don't play with color. You play with talent.'
Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth.
In the half darkness I winked to my other self, my mad dictator, and congratulated him on his droll victory. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth flowing from Shosha's head to my face. What did I have to lose? Nothing more than what everyone loses anyway.
The only thing in the world worth a damn is the strange, touching, pathetic, awesome nobility of the individual human spirit.
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