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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.

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
Secret
Secrets
Foreign
Office

More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor

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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.
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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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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Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
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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History is the great propagator of doubt.
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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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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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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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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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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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
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.
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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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
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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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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor