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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.
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
Mistake
Study
History
Past
Make
Napoleon
Like
Mistakes
Ones
Learned
More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor
History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.
A. J. P. Taylor
History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
A. J. P. Taylor
If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
A. J. P. Taylor
No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
A. J. P. Taylor
Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
A. J. P. Taylor
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
The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
A. J. P. Taylor
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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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?
A. J. P. Taylor
A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
A. J. P. Taylor
