# Quote — Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror

> What is government but an arrangement by which the many accept the authority of the few?

- Author: [Barbara W. Tuchman](https://www.leafyquotes.com/barbara-w-tuchman.md)
- Book: [A Distant Mirror](https://www.leafyquotes.com/barbara-w-tuchman/a-distant-mirror.md)
- Page: 455
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barbara_Tuchman#A_Distant_Mirror_(1978)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/barbara-w-tuchman/a-distant-mirror/what-is-government

## More from this book

> Whatever solace the Christian faith could give was balanced by the anxiety it generated.

p. 469 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/barbara-w-tuchman/a-distant-mirror/whatever-solace-the.md)

> If it is not profitable for the common good that authority should be retained, it ought to be relinquished.

p. 520 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/barbara-w-tuchman/a-distant-mirror/if-it-is-not.md)

> On being shown a relic said to be a bone of St. Elizabeth, he (Sigismund) turned it over and remarked that it could just as well be that of a dead cobbler.

p. 542 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/barbara-w-tuchman/a-distant-mirror/on-being-shown.md)