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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
Today
Always
Meaningless
Nearly
Meaningful
Word
Used

More quotes by Paul Johnson

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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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Long periods of recession, which tend to be self-perpetuating, are usually ended by war, or by preparations for it.
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You know you're an Arizona native when you have to look up mass transit in the dictionary.
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Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts.
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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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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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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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I've been having an affair, but I still believe in family values.
Paul Johnson
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I was very fond of Princess Diana. She used to have me over to lunch to ask my advice. I'd give her good advice, and she'd say: 'I entirely agree. Paul, you're so right.' Then she'd go and do the opposite.
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I like that lady - Sarah Palin. She's great. I like the cut of her jib.
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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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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.
Paul Johnson
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A Stalin functionary admitted, Innocent people were arrested: naturally - otherwise no one would be frightened. If people were arrested only for specific misdemeanours, all the others would feel safe and so become ripe for treason.
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If anti-Semitism is a variety of racism, it is a most peculiar variety, with many unique characteristics. In my view as a historian, it is so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category. I would call it an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive.
Paul Johnson
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Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.
Paul Johnson
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As the CIA and KGB, like God and Satan, fight Miltonic battles across five continents.
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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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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.
Paul Johnson
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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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If we want foxes, to observe and delight in, we must have hunting.
Paul Johnson