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This book has been a catalogue of mistakes by politicians, moral and practical disasters which led to wars, enslavement and wretchedness on a scale which no previous age could have dreaded or dreamed of.

A. N. Wilson

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A. N. Wilson
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: January 1
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Andrew Norman Wilson
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More quotes by A. N. Wilson

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It would no doubt be very sentimental to argue - but I would argue it nevertheless - that the peculiar combination of joy and sadness in bell music - both of clock chimes, and of change-ringing - is very typical of England. It is of a piece with the irony in which English people habitually address one another.
A. N. Wilson
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I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off 'Thought for the Day' when it comes on the radio.
A. N. Wilson
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Millions of Christians can and do go through life attending church, listening to sermons, reciting the creeds and never confront the seeming contradictions, redaction and myths passed off as verifiable history.
A. N. Wilson
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It is hard to think of anything which more tragically and clearly exemplifies the phenomenon of good political intentions achieving the precise opposite of their aim.
A. N. Wilson
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I had lost faith in biography.
A. N. Wilson
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I think I became a Catholic to annoy my father.
A. N. Wilson
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We tell ourselves that God is dead, when what we mean is that God is Dad, and we wish him dead.
A. N. Wilson
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In the 18th century, James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, and Richard Arkwright pioneered the water-propelled spinning frame which led to the mass production of cotton. This was truly revolutionary. The cotton manufacturers created a whole new class of people - the urban proletariat. The structure of society itself would never be the same.
A. N. Wilson
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I believe the collapse of the House of Windsor is tied in with the collapse of the Church of England.
A. N. Wilson
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My kind publishers, Toby Mundy and Margaret Stead of Atlantic Books, have commissioned me to write the life of Queen Victoria.
A. N. Wilson
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As Hitler himself later enunciated, it matters not how idiotic the creed, what matters is the firmness with which it is enunciated.
A. N. Wilson
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IQ in general has improved since tests first began. Psychologists think that this is because modern life becomes ever more complicated.
A. N. Wilson
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The death of any man aged 56 is very sad for his widow and family. And no one would deny that Steve Jobs was a brilliant and highly innovative technician, with great business flair and marketing ability.
A. N. Wilson
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Since Einstein developed his theory of relativity, and Rutherford and Bohr revolutionised physics, our picture of the world has radically changed.
A. N. Wilson
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It is eerie being all but alone in Westminster Abbey. Without the tourists, there are only the dead, many of them kings and queens. They speak powerfully and put my thoughts into vivid perspective.
A. N. Wilson
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On the rare occasions when I spend a night in Oxford, the keeping of the hours by the clock towers in New College, and Merton, and the great booming of Tom tolling 101 times at 9 pm at Christ Church are inextricably interwoven with memories and regrets and lost joys. The sound almost sends me mad, so intense are the feelings it evokes.
A. N. Wilson
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Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not.
A. N. Wilson
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A busybody's work is never done.
A. N. Wilson
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In the past, I used to counter any such notions by asking myself: 'Would you really want President Hattersley?' I now find that possibility rather cheers me up. With his chubby, Dickensian features and his knowledge of T.H. Green and other harmless leftish political classics, Hattersley might not be such a bad thing after all.
A. N. Wilson
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I'm not saying all publishers have to be literary, but some interest in books would help.
A. N. Wilson