A.J.P. Taylor: Quotes about the past

A.J.P. Taylor was Historian. Explore interesting quotes on past.
A.J.P. Taylor: 30 quotes0 likes

“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.”

A.J.P. Taylor

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

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

A.J.P. Taylor

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

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

A.J.P. Taylor

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