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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.

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
Nothing
Listen
Men
Study
Opinion
Behaviour
Pleasure
Instruction
Read
Variety
Learn
Infinite
History
Except
Music
Poetry

More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor

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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.
A. J. P. Taylor
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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
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History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
A. J. P. Taylor
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There is nothing nicer than nodding off while reading. Going fast asleep and then being woken by the crash of the book on the floor, then saying to yourself, well it doesn't matter much. An admirable feeling.
A. J. P. Taylor
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A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
A. J. P. Taylor
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History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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
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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
A. J. P. Taylor
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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