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The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
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
Present
Understand
Past
Way
Enables
Round
Rounds
More quotes by 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
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
Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
A. J. P. Taylor
No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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
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
The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
A. J. P. Taylor
We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
A. J. P. Taylor
The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
A. J. P. Taylor
Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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
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
History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
A. J. P. Taylor
If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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
The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
A. J. P. Taylor
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
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
