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There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.

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
Make
Life
Corrupting
Agreeable
Establishment
Peace

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
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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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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.
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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
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If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
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If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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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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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The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
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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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
A. J. P. Taylor