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I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, What happened next?
A. J. P. Taylor
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A. J. P. Taylor
Age: 84 †
Born: 1906
Born: March 25
Died: 1990
Died: September 7
Historian
Historian Of The Modern Age
Journalist
University Teacher
Alan John Percivale Taylor
Next
Believing
Firsts
Narrative
Function
First
Answer
Children
Question
Believe
Answers
Happened
Matured
Child
Historian
More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor
Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
A. J. P. Taylor
History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
Fascism was little more than terrorist rule by corrupt gangsters. Mussolini was not corrupt himself but he did nothing except to rage impotently.
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Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
A. J. P. Taylor
When I write I have no loyalty except to historical truth as I see it and care no more about British achievements and mistakes than any other.
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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
A. J. P. Taylor
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world.
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Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.
A. J. P. Taylor
A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
A. J. P. Taylor
American statesmen might like some Europeans more than others and even detect quaint resemblances to their own outlook but they no more committed themselves to a particular group or country than a nineteenth-century missionary committed himself to the African tribe in which he happened to find himself.
A. J. P. Taylor
Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
A. J. P. Taylor
The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
A. J. P. Taylor
Psychoanalysts believe that the only normal people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.
A. J. P. Taylor
In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.
A. J. P. Taylor
The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
A. J. P. Taylor
The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
A. J. P. Taylor
One of the penalties of being president of the United States is that you must subsist for four years without drinking anything except Californian wine.
A. J. P. Taylor
