Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Paul Johnson
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: November 2
Editor
Historian
Journalist
Speechwriter
Writer
Manchester
England
Paul Bede Johnson
Truth
Versailles
Firsts
Treaty
First
Treaties
Much
Acknowledge
World
Took
Second
War
Place

More quotes by Paul Johnson

Image
You know you're an Arizona native when you have to look up mass transit in the dictionary.
Paul Johnson
Image
Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts.
Paul Johnson
Image
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.
Paul Johnson
Image
Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth
Paul Johnson
Image
There are no inevitabilities in history
Paul Johnson
Image
Hell is being trapped in a night-club with the'beautiful people'and forced to live in a'luxury penthouse flat'.
Paul Johnson
Image
As a child I found railroad stations exciting, mysterious, and even beautiful, as indeed they often were.
Paul Johnson
Image
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.
Paul Johnson
Image
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.
Paul Johnson
Image
Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.
Paul Johnson
Image
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.
Paul Johnson
Image
Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them.
Paul Johnson
Image
The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.
Paul Johnson
Image
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.
Paul Johnson
Image
As the CIA and KGB, like God and Satan, fight Miltonic battles across five continents.
Paul Johnson
Image
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.
Paul Johnson
Image
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.
Paul Johnson
Image
Long periods of recession, which tend to be self-perpetuating, are usually ended by war, or by preparations for it.
Paul Johnson
Image
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
Image
I like that lady - Sarah Palin. She's great. I like the cut of her jib.
Paul Johnson