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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
Pleasure
Instruction
Read
Variety
Learn
Infinite
History
Except
Music
Poetry
Nothing
Listen
Men
Study
Opinion
Behaviour
More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor
Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
A. J. P. Taylor
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
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
History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
A. J. P. Taylor
Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
A. J. P. Taylor
A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
A. J. P. Taylor
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
There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
A. J. P. Taylor
The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
A. J. P. Taylor
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
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
Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
A. J. P. Taylor
The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
