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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
History
Past
Make
Napoleon
Like
Mistakes
Ones
Learned
Mistake
Study

More quotes by A. J. P. Taylor

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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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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
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If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
A. J. P. Taylor
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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
A. J. P. Taylor
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
A. J. P. Taylor
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Psychoanalysts believe that the only normal people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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?
A. J. P. Taylor
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In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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History is the great propagator of doubt.
A. J. P. Taylor
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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.
A. J. P. Taylor
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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