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The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless.

Paul Johnson

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Paul Johnson
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: November 2
Editor
Historian
Journalist
Speechwriter
Writer
Manchester
England
Paul Bede Johnson
Meaningless
Nearly
Meaningful
Word
Used
Today
Always

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If we want foxes, to observe and delight in, we must have hunting.
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As a child I found railroad stations exciting, mysterious, and even beautiful, as indeed they often were.
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The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.
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Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.
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The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them.
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The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth.
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Scanning the newspapers and absorbing with a mixture of incredulity and indignation the enormities they report, I conclude that what England lacks today is, quite simply, sense.
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In the long term, it is desirable that the human race, faced with the prospect of extinction on Earth, should prepare an escape route for itself to another inhabitable planet.
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If I see a door ajar, I push on it to see how far it will open, and if it opens wide I go through it.
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As the CIA and KGB, like God and Satan, fight Miltonic battles across five continents.
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There are no inevitabilities in history
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It takes less than a decade for today's luxury to become a universal necessity.
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This book is dedicated to the people of America--strong, outspoken, intense in their convictions, sometimes wrong-headed but always generous and brave, with a passion for justice no nation has ever matched.
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Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts.
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I've been having an affair, but I still believe in family values.
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Hell is being trapped in a night-club with the'beautiful people'and forced to live in a'luxury penthouse flat'.
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I don't write huge books any more. I used to write 1,000 printed pages, but now I write short books. I did one on Napoleon, 50,000 words - enjoyed doing that. He was a baddie. I did one on Churchill, which was a bestseller in New York, I'm glad to say. 50,000 words. He was a goodie.
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In the past, the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as president, which began a national resurgence.
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At some time in their careers, most good historians itch to write a history of the world, endeavor to discover what makes humanity the most destructive and creative of species.
Paul Johnson
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My grandfather used to say, Learn to like art, music and literature deeply and passionately. They will be your friends when things are bad. It is true: at this time of year, when days are short and dark, and one hardly dares to open the newspapers, I turn, not vainly either, to the great creators of the past for distraction, solace and help.
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