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Unlike memory, which confirms and reinforces itself, history contributes to the disenchantment of the world.

Tony Judt

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Tony Judt
Age: 62 †
Born: 1948
Born: January 2
Died: 2010
Died: August 6
Essayist
Historian
Non-Fiction Writer
Professor
Teacher
London
England
Tony Robert Judt
Disenchantment
Confirms
Contributes
Unlike
Memory
Memories
History
World
Reinforces

More quotes by Tony Judt

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It does irritate me when I am described as a controversialist and commentator on Israel.
Tony Judt
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I don't believe that one should have one-size-fits-all moral rules for international political action.
Tony Judt
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After 1945 what happened was rather the opposite: with one major exception boundaries stayed broadly intact and people were moved instead.
Tony Judt
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History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it.
Tony Judt
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The people whose necks hurt when I write about the Middle East tend to live in Brooklyn or Boca Raton: the kind of Zionist who pays another man to live in Israel for him. I have nothing but contempt for such people.
Tony Judt
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We have responsibilities for others, not just across space but across time. We have responsibilities to people who came before us. They left us a world of institutions, ideas or possibilities for which we, in turn, owe them something. One of the things we owe them is not to squander them.
Tony Judt
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History always happens to us and nothing ever stays the same.
Tony Judt
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Love consists in leaving the loved one space to be themselves while providing the security within which that self may flourish.
Tony Judt
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Apparently, the line you take on Israel trumps everything else in life.
Tony Judt
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We are not merely historians but also and always citizens.
Tony Judt
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But I'm English. We don't do uplifting.
Tony Judt
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If words fall into disrepair, what will substitute? They are all we have
Tony Judt
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We need to start talking about inequality again we need to start talking about the inequities and unfairnesses and the injustices of an excessively divided society, divided by wealth, by opportunity, by outcome, by assets and so forth.
Tony Judt
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Judaism for me is a sensibility of collective self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling. I feel a debt of responsibility to this past. It is why I am Jewish.
Tony Judt
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Social democracy does not represent an ideal future it does not even represent the ideal past.
Tony Judt
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I can still boss people around. I can still write. I can still read. I can still eat, and I can still have very strong views.
Tony Judt
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Israel today is bad for the Jews.
Tony Judt
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I don't much mind being expelled from communities.
Tony Judt
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We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth.
Tony Judt
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I was born accidentally. I lived accidentally in London. We nearly migrated to New Zealand. So much of my life has been a product of chance, I can't see a meaning in it at all.
Tony Judt