Paul Johnson Quotes

Nothing appeals to intellectuals more than the feeling that they represent 'the people'. Nothing, as a rule, is further from the truth

The Second World War took place not so much because no one won the First, but because the Versailles Treaty did not acknowledge this truth.

A deliberate plan is not always necessary for the highest art; it emerges.

Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.

The most socially subversive institution of our time is the one-parent family.

The most evil person I ever met was a toss-up between Pablo Picasso and the publisher-crook Robert Maxwell.

In the last generation, with public Christianity in headlong retreat, we have caught our first, distant view of a de-Christianized world , and it is not encouraging.

In the long term, it is desirable that the human race, faced with the prospect of extinction on Earth, should prepare an escape route for itself to another inhabitable planet.

For me this is the vital litmus test: no intellectual society can flourish where a Jew feels even slightly uneasy.

Euphemism is a human device to conceal the horrors of reality.

To many, Heathrow in August is a paradigm of Hell.

I've been having an affair, but I still believe in family values.

As a child I found railroad stations exciting, mysterious, and even beautiful, as indeed they often were.

Every good historian is almost by definition a revisionist. He looks at the accepted view of a particular historic episode or period with a very critical eye.

Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down.

...the century's most radical vice... the notion that human beings can be shoveled around like concrete.

Democracy has many enemies, and the terrorist is only one of them.

The most intimidating world leader was Lyndon Johnson, who became U.S. President when John Kennedy was assassinated. He exulted in this power and liked to inspire fear.

Next to courage, willpower is the most important thing in politics.

Courage is the essential element in any great public man or woman.

In 1924 Mao took a Chinese friend, newly arrived from Europe, to see the notorious sign in the Shanghai park, 'Chinese and Dogs Not Allowed'.

If I see a door ajar, I push on it to see how far it will open, and if it opens wide I go through it.

A capitalist economy hums when leading businessmen are bubbling with animal spirits and are prepared to sink their money into risky ventures.

I very much wanted to be editor of the 'New Statesman!' But I never wanted to be prime minister, except maybe as a little boy.

You know you're an Arizona native when you have to look up "mass transit" in the dictionary.

At some time in their careers, most good historians itch to write a history of the world, endeavor to discover what makes humanity the most destructive and creative of species.

As the CIA and KGB, like God and Satan, fight Miltonic battles across five continents.

I like that lady - Sarah Palin. She's great. I like the cut of her jib.

John Major is what he is: a man from nowhere, going nowhere, heading for a well-merited obscurity as fast as his mediocre talents can carry him.

Human beings are infinitely worth studying, especially the peculiarities that often go along with outstanding gifts.

If we want foxes, to observe and delight in, we must have hunting.

Long periods of recession, which tend to be self-perpetuating, are usually ended by war, or by preparations for it.

Scanning the newspapers and absorbing with a mixture of incredulity and indignation the enormities they report, I conclude that what England lacks today is, quite simply, sense.

Wisdom lies not in possessing knowledge - which quickly becomes outdated - but in perpetually seeking it.

The richness and variety, and indeed the advance, of our culture depend upon the continuation of this conflict [between conservatives and radicals], which is deeply rooted in human nature.

It takes less than a decade for today's luxury to become a universal necessity.

The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless.

There are no inevitabilities in history

The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them.

Hell is being trapped in a night-club with the'beautiful people'and forced to live in a'luxury penthouse flat'.

The freedom enjoyed in Western society under the rule of law and constitutional government explains both the quality of its civilization and its wealth.