A.J.P. Taylor Quotes

Alan John Percivale Taylor was a British historian who specialised in 19th- and 20th-century European diplomacy. Both a journalist and a broadcaster, he became well known to millions through his television lectures. His combination of academic rigour and popular appeal led the historian Richard Overy to describe him as "the Macaulay of our age".

Wikipedia

✵ 25. March 1906 – 7. September 1990

Works

The Origins of the Second World War

The Origins of the Second World War

A.J.P. Taylor

The Origins of the Second World War

The Origins of the Second World War

A.J.P. Taylor

A.J.P. Taylor: 15 quotes0 likes

Famous A.J.P. Taylor Quotes

“A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.”

A.J.P. Taylor book The Origins of the Second World War

The Origins of the Second World War ([1961] 1962), Ch. 7, p. 134

“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.”

"The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett", p. 14
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

“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.”

"The Great War: The Triumph of E. D. Morel", p. 157
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

“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”

"The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett", p 34
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

“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.”

English History 1914 – 1945 ([1965] 1975), "Revised Bibliography", p. 729

“Like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.”

Referring to Napoleon III, in "Mistaken Lessons from the Past", The Listener (6 June 1963)

A.J.P. Taylor Quotes

“The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.”

Mon the Rangers
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

“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.”

"The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett", p. 14
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

“The worker is by nature less imaginative, more level-headed than the capitalist. This is what prevents his becoming one. He is content with small gains. Trade Union officials think about the petty cash; the employer speculates in millions. You can see the difference in their representative institutions. There is no scheme too wild, no rumour too absurd, to be without repercussions on the Stock Exchange. The public house is the home of common sense.”

"Dissenting Rivals: Urquhart and Cobden", p. 55
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

“The greatest problem about old age is the fear that it may go on too long.”

An Old Man's Diary ([1981] 1984) p. 39

“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.”

The First World War ([1963] 1970) p. 165

“Taylor's Law states: "The Foreign Office knows no secrets."”

English History 1914 – 1945 ([1965] 1975), "Revised Bibliography", p. 730

“The First World War had begun — imposed on the statesmen of Europe by railway timetables. It was an unexpected climax to the railway age.”

The First World War ([1963] 1970) p. 20

“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 Personal History ([1983] 1984) p. 301

“Why should knowledge of where I came from tell me where I am going to?”

'Moving with the Times', The Observer, 22 October 1961

Similar authors

Romain Rolland photo

Romain Rolland43

French author None

Svetlana Alexievich photo

Svetlana Alexievich8

Belarusian investigative journalist and non-fiction prose w… None

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn120

Russian writer None

Ludwig von Mises photo

Ludwig von Mises62

austrian economist None

Ilya Ehrenburg photo

Ilya Ehrenburg1

Russian-Soviet writer and poet None

Hannah Arendt photo

Hannah Arendt85

Jewish-American political theorist None

Nicholas II of Russia photo

Nicholas II of Russia4

Emperor of All the Russias, Grand Duke of Finland and King … None

Winston S. Churchill photo

Winston S. Churchill601

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom None

Reinhold Niebuhr photo

Reinhold Niebuhr65

American protestant theologian None

Bertrand Russell photo

Bertrand Russell562

logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… None