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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
Read
Variety
Learn
Infinite
History
Except
Music
Poetry
Nothing
Listen
Men
Study
Opinion
Behaviour
Pleasure
Instruction
More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
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
The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
A. J. P. Taylor
No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
A. J. P. Taylor
History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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
If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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
We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
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
Psychoanalysts believe that the only normal people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.
A. J. P. Taylor
If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
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
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
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
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
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
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
No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
A. J. P. Taylor
The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
A. J. P. Taylor
