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There are thus great swathes of the past where understanding is more important and reputable than judgement, because the principal actors performed in line with the ideas and values of that time, not of ours.

Douglas Hurd

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Douglas Hurd
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: March 8
Banker
British Politician
Diplomat
Novelist
Politician
Science Fiction Writer
Marlborough
Wiltshire
Douglas Richard Hurd
Baron Hurd of Westwell
Important
Thus
Great
Line
Time
Lines
Understanding
Swathes
Values
Reputable
Actors
Performed
Past
Judgement
Ideas
Principal

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Wisely used history can give pleasure and provide us with a useful tool but we should not become its slaves.
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We should be wary of politicians who profess to follow history while only noticing those signposts of history that point in the direction which they themselves already favour.
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There is no consensus even today on the merits of Napoleon - and certainly no agreement on the rights and wrongs of the origins of the First World War.
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Some people find it difficult to argue with a woman Prime Minister and shrivel up.
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Ten Downing Street is a house, not an office. That is its most important characteristic.
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History provides no precise guidelines.
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People are very interested in politics, they just don't like it labelled 'politics'.
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We, Britain and Germany, can neither of us be happy about our handling of the Iraq war.
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Margaret Thatcher was fearful of German unification because she believed that this would bring an immediate and formidable increase of economic strength to a Germany which was already the strongest economic partner in Europe.
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A genuinely democratic Iraq might well act as a fresh spur.
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People know they are lacking something, they are constantly wanting some kind of spiritual guidance.
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It is normal for politicians in all countries to profess themselves the pupils of history, anxious to draw the right lessons from her teaching.
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War on Iraq runs the risk of turning the Middle East into an inexhaustible recruiting ground for anti- western terrorism.
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But Germany will always suffer, I fear, from the intensely dramatic character of the crimes of the Third Reich.
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Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the accepted values of that time.
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