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
strong hero nazism
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.
littles rage terrorist
Fascism was little more than terrorist rule by corrupt gangsters. Mussolini was not corrupt himself but he did nothing except to rage impotently.
winning history lessons
Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
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.
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.
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.