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

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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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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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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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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.
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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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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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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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The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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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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All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
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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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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
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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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If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
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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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