Frasi di A. J. P. Taylor

“Credo che le generazioni future non avranno difficoltà nel riconoscere in Mao la figura più importante di questo secolo.”

p. 232

“Il maggiore contributo alla storia dell'umanità è venuto dalla base, dal lavoro di una massa enorme di persone sconosciute, non dai pochi che stanno al vertice del potere.”

p. 233

“L'educazione prussiana delle classi medie prima, delle masse poi, era la meraviglia dell'Europa del XIX secolo: ma pochi al di fuori della Germania ne comprendevano le finalità. Il maestro elementare, l'insegnante di scuola secondaria, il professore universitario, erano tutti servitori dello Stato prussiano, che assolvevano con entusiasmo un compito secondo in importanza solo a quello dei comandanti militari. […] L'educazione prussiana, e più tardi quella tedesca, era una gigantesca macchina di conquista, tanto più efficace in quanto era manovrata da volontari. (Capitolo II. La preponderanza francese”

p. 233

“La Rivoluzione francese trasformò la Germania quasi altrettanto profondamente della Francia: l'antico ordine politico, ed in talune zone del paese l'antico ordine sociale, subirono un mutamento tale da divenire quasi irriconoscibili. Ma queste grandi trasformazioni ebbero luogo in maniera fondamentalmente diversa. In Francia la Rivoluzione fu l'opera del popolo francese: le sue sofferenze ed i suoi sforzi insegnarono a questo ultimo la lezione essenziale della politica, la lezione del potere. […] In Germania, quanti desideravano le riforme liberali non fecero nulla per promuovere la loro causa; aspettarono passivamente, sia pure piagnucolando, di essere liberati dai francesi, e la forza che in Germania spalancò la porta al talento non fu la forza dei contadini tedeschi, ma quella dei contadini francesi nella sua forma organizzata dell'esercito francese. (Capitolo II. La preponderanza francese”

1792-1814), p. 45
Storia della Germania

“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.”

1792-1814), p. 32
Storia della Germania

A. J. P. Taylor: Frasi in inglese

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

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

“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 libro 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 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. 14
The Trouble Makers: Dissent over Foreign Policy, 1792-1939 (1957)

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

"The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett", p 34
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.”

Mon the Rangers
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.”

"The Radical Tradition: Fox, Paine, and Cobbett", p. 14
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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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.”

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

“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?"”

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

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

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