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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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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
Vices
England
Place
Snobbery
Everything
Escapes
Looks
Manchester
Good
Characteristic
Vice
Characteristics

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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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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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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 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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Conformity may give you a quiet life it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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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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A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
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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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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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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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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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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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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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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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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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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