Top 43 A.J.P. Taylor Quotes
#1. We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
A.J.P. Taylor
#2. Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
A.J.P. Taylor
#3. There is nothing nicer than nodding off while reading. Going fast asleep and then being woken by the crash of the book on the floor, then saying to yourself, well it doesn't matter much. An admirable feeling.
A.J.P. Taylor
#4. The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.
A.J.P. Taylor
#5. If there had been a strong democratic sentiment in Germany, Hitler would never have come to power . [Germans] deserved what they got when they went round crying for a hero.
A.J.P. Taylor
#7. [Otto von Bismarck] only considered the interests of his own country - always the worst offense that a statesman can commit in the eyes of foreigners.
A.J.P. Taylor
#8. Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
A.J.P. Taylor
#9. In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world.
A.J.P. Taylor
#10. A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
A.J.P. Taylor
#11. Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty,
And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
A.J.P. Taylor
#12. The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.
A.J.P. Taylor
#13. The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.
A.J.P. Taylor
#14. In my opinion we learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour. We study it, as we listen to music or read poetry, for pleasure, not for instruction
A.J.P. Taylor
#16. No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
A.J.P. Taylor
#17. History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.
A.J.P. Taylor
#18. Conformity may give you a quiet life; it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
A.J.P. Taylor
#20. A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
A.J.P. Taylor
#21. Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
A.J.P. Taylor
#22. The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
A.J.P. Taylor
#23. Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
A.J.P. Taylor
#24. I was a narrative historian, believing more and more as I matured that the first function of the historian was to answer the child's question, What happened next?
A.J.P. Taylor
#25. There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment - and nothing more corrupting.
A.J.P. Taylor
#26. When I write I have no loyalty except to historical truth as I see it and care no more about British achievements and mistakes than any other.
A.J.P. Taylor
#27. History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.
A.J.P. Taylor
#28. In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.
A.J.P. Taylor
#29. Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.
A.J.P. Taylor
#31. History is not a catalogue but ... a convincing version of events.
A.J.P. Taylor
#32. The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide ...
A.J.P. Taylor
#33. Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.
A.J.P. Taylor
#34. If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
A.J.P. Taylor
#35. George VI in the conventional parlance was a Good King who sacrificed his life to his sense of duty. If we are to have monarchs it would be hard to find a better one.
A.J.P. Taylor
#36. In retrospect, though many were guilty, none was innocent.
A.J.P. Taylor
#37. Psychoanalysts believe that the only 'normal' people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anyone else.
A.J.P. Taylor
#38. Fascism was little more than terrorist rule by corrupt gangsters. Mussolini was not corrupt himself but he did nothing except to rage impotently.
A.J.P. Taylor
#39. Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
A.J.P. Taylor
#40. The crusade against Communism was even more imaginary than the specter of Communism.
A.J.P. Taylor
#41. One of the penalties of being president of the United States is that you must subsist for four years without drinking anything except Californian wine.
A.J.P. Taylor
#42. Manchester has everything but good looks ... , the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
A.J.P. Taylor
#43. All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
A.J.P. Taylor
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
