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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.

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
Safe
Treason
Fear
Ripe
Others
Arrested
Become
Frightened
Feel
Specific
Feels
Naturally
Functionary
Would
Innocent
Stalin
People
Otherwise
Admitted

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It takes less than a decade for today's luxury to become a universal necessity.
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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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If we want foxes, to observe and delight in, we must have hunting.
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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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As a child I found railroad stations exciting, mysterious, and even beautiful, as indeed they often were.
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I like that lady - Sarah Palin. She's great. I like the cut of her jib.
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As the CIA and KGB, like God and Satan, fight Miltonic battles across five continents.
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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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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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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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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.
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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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There are no inevitabilities in history
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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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