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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.

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
Kill
Bismarck
Necessary
Idealists
Fight
Idealist
Century
Twentieth
Millions
Fought
Wars
Fighting
Killed
War
Thousands

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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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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
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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 greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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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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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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Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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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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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
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There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
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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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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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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.
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If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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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.
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