There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the establishment and nothing more corrupting.
A. J. P. TaylorRead
Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Mistakes often have a greater impact on history than intentional wrongdoing.
A. J. P. Taylor's quote suggests that the significant mistakes and errors made by people play a more crucial role in shaping historical events than the malicious actions of individuals. It highlights the unpredictable nature of human behavior where misjudgments and blunders can lead to substantial consequences, often altering the course of history more than deliberate acts of evil.
Themes
HistoryBlundersMistakesHuman BehaviorConsequences
In practice
Example use cases
In a history class discussion about the impact of World War I, this quote could be used to emphasize how misjudgments influenced the war's outcome.
More from A. J. P. Taylor
All quotes βThe male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.
A. J. P. TaylorRead
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. TaylorRead
Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.
A. J. P. TaylorRead
If there had been no troublemakers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
A. J. P. TaylorRead
Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.
A. J. P. TaylorRead
Similar quotes
My mom, Clida, taught my four brothers and me about her father's work to organize black voters in rural Louisiana in the 1950s. We carried her dad's legacy of activism with us. The Civil Rights Movement was present in the daily life of my family in Detroit in the 1970s.
Keith EllisonRead
I cannot write about the past unless I go where history happened. Some make very good armchair historians, I'm not one of them. If you're going to inhabit someone else's world, the very least you can do is to spend a little time in it.
Bettany HughesRead
Egypt gave birth to what later would become known as 'Western Civilization,' long before the greatness of Greece and Rome.
John Henrik ClarkeRead
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
Karl MarxRead
The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects ... what they thus lost they have never got back.
H. L. MenckenRead
The deciphering of ancient scripts changed forever the way Europeans were able to imagine the story of humanity, destroying centuries of received authority about the past with repercussions as important for our understanding of time and history as the geological studies of the same period.
Neil MacgregorRead