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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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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
Security
Armies
Nations
Antiwar
Peace
Preserve
War
Preserves
Great
Carried
Provide
Army
Weight
Accumulated

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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.
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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
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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.
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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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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.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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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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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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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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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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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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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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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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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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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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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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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.
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