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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.

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
War
Power
Able
Remaining
Great
Object
Way
Objects
Fight
Though
Fighting

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A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
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The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
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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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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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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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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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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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If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
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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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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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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
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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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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 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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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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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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History is the great propagator of doubt.
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.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
A. J. P. Taylor