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There are no inevitabilities in history

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
Inspirational
Inevitabilities
Inevitability
History

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If we want foxes, to observe and delight in, we must have hunting.
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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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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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Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts.
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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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I've been having an affair, but I still believe in family values.
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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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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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The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.
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I like that lady - Sarah Palin. She's great. I like the cut of her jib.
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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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You know you're an Arizona native when you have to look up mass transit in the dictionary.
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The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless.
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It takes less than a decade for today's luxury to become a universal necessity.
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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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Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth
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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.
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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 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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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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