A. J. P. Taylor quotes

A. J. P. Taylor was a British historian and broadcaster, renowned for his works on 19th- and 20th-century European history. His accessible style and controversial interpretations made him a household name in academic and public circles. He helped popularize history on television and influenced generations of historians. Here are 32 of his quotes:

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

A. J. P. Taylor

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

A. J. P. Taylor

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.

A. J. P. Taylor

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

A. J. P. Taylor

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

A. J. P. Taylor

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. J. P. Taylor

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

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.

A. J. P. Taylor

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.

A. J. P. Taylor

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.

A. J. P. Taylor

No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.

A. J. P. Taylor

The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.

A. J. P. Taylor

Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.

A. J. P. Taylor

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.

A. J. P. Taylor

Psychoanalysts believe that the only 'normal' people are those who cause no trouble either to themselves or anyone else.

A. J. P. Taylor

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

A. J. P. Taylor

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

A. J. P. Taylor

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.

A. J. P. Taylor

If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.

A. J. P. Taylor

History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.

A. J. P. Taylor

Knowledge breeds doubt, not certainty, And the more we know the more uncertain we become.

A. J. P. Taylor

No war is inevitable until it breaks out.

A. J. P. Taylor