Quote

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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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
Doesn
Asleep
Wells
Crash
Book
Floor
Well
Fast
Nothing
Saying
Woken
Matter
Feeling
Nodding
Going
Reading
Nicer
Much
Feelings
Admirable

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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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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
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Psychoanalysts believe that the only normal people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.
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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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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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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
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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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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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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
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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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Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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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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In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world.
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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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History is the great propagator of doubt.
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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
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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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