A. J. P. Taylor Quotes
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No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.
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A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.
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Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.
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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.
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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.
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Every historian loves the past or should do. If not, he has mistaken his vocation; but it is a short step from loving the past to regretting that it has ever changed. Conservatism is our greatest trade-risk; and we run psychoanalysts close in the belief that the only "normal" people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anybody else.
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All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
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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.
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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.
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There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
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We learn nothing from history except the infinite variety of men's behaviour.
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The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.
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American statesmen might like some Europeans more than others and even detect quaint resemblances to their own outlook; but they no more committed themselves to a particular group or country than a nineteenth-century missionary committed himself to the African tribe in which he happened to find himself.
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The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
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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.
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The God of Battles will throw the dice that decide.
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No war is inevitable until it breaks out.
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If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
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Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
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Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
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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.
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Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
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Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
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History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.
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History is not another name for the past, as many people imply. It is the name for stories about the past.
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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
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