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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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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
Men
Behaviour
Variety
Infinite
Except
Learn
History

More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor

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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
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 present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
A. J. P. Taylor
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Psychoanalysts believe that the only normal people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.
A. J. P. Taylor
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The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
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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Fascism was little more than terrorist rule by corrupt gangsters. Mussolini was not corrupt himself but he did nothing except to rage impotently.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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
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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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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
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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.
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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History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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