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Conformity may give you a quiet life it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.

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
Change
University
Nonconformists
Give
Quiet
Dissenters
Still
Bring
Caves
May
Trouble
Chair
Giving
Living
Conformity
Even
History
Makers
Life
Comes
Chairs
Stills
Advance

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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . [Germans] deserved what they got when they went round crying for a hero.
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George VI in the conventional parlance was a Good King who sacrificed his life to his sense of duty. If we are to have monarchs it would be hard to find a better one.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
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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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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
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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.
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If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
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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.
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All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
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If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
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In my opinion we learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour. We study it, as we listen to music or read poetry, for pleasure, not for instruction.
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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
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The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.
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There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
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