A. J. P. Taylor
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor FBAwas an English 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"...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth25 March 1906
kings would-be duty
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.
perfect soldier enemy
Perfect soldier, perfect gentleman never gave offence to anyone not even the enemy.
depression believe people
Psychoanalysts believe that the only "normal" people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.
racing levels clients
A racing tipster who only reached Hitler's level of accuracy would not do well for his clients.
mistake past studying-history
Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
doubt uncertain certainty
Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.
history psychological sociology
All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
office secret knows
The Foreign Office knows no secrets.
drinking wine years
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.
player history principles
Rather an end in horror, than horror without end. He could not condemn principles he might need to invoke and apply later. The wolf cannot help having been created by God as he is, but we shoot him all the same if we have to. The great player in diplomacy, as in chess, asks the question,Does this improve me?, not look at the possible fringe benefits If you can't have what you like, you must like what you have.
children believe answers
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?
men behaviour opinion
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
dangerous history learned statesman student study
He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be - a student of history; and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.
anyone believe either people
Psychoanalysts believe that the only 'normal' people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anyone else.