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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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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
Opinion
Hands
Past
Power
Prestige
Great
Grandeur
Men
Beer
Wealth
Went

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The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
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The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
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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.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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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.
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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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.
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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.
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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.
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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
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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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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
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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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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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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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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