26 Tony Judt Quotes for You to Enjoy

Tony Judt

British Historian

Born: Jan 2, 1948

Died: Aug 6, 2010

History Life Me People Think World

Related authors: A. J. P. Taylor Antony Beevor Arnold J. Toynbee Arthur Helps C. Northcote Parkinson Linda Colley Norman Davies Simon Schama

It does irritate me when I am described as a controversialist and commentator on Israel. Tony Judt

Me Does Am Israel Commentator Irritate

I started work on my first French history book in 1969; on 'Socialism in Provence' in 1974; and on the essays in Marxism and the French Left in 1978. Conversely, my first non-academic publication, a review in the 'TLS', did not come until the late 1980s, and it was not until 1993 that I published my first piece in the 'New York Review.' Tony Judt

I just like being on my own on trains, traveling. I spent all my pocket money travelling the London Underground and Southern Railway, what used to be the Western region, and in Europe as much as I could afford it. My parents used to think I was going places, but I wasn't, I was just travelling the trains. Tony Judt

Money Parents Own Think Spent London Pocket My Own Could Like Underground Western Southern Trains Afford Going Just Being Places Region Much Used Europe Traveling Travelling Railway

I was born in 1948, so I'm a '60s kid, and in the '60s everyone talked all the time, endlessly, about socialism versus capitalism, about political choices, ideology, Marxism, revolution, 'the system' and so on. Tony Judt

Time Capitalism Socialism Political Ideology Revolution Everyone Kid System Born About Marxism Talked Versus Endlessly Choices

Social democrats are characteristically modest - a political quality whose virtues are overestimated. We need to apologise a little less for our shortcomings and speak more assertively of achievements. That these were always incomplete should not trouble us. Tony Judt

Quality Speak Political Trouble Incomplete Our Virtues More Democrats Overestimated Always Were Achievements Shortcomings Little Social Modest Us Apologise Should Less Whose Need

History always happens to us and nothing ever stays the same. Tony Judt

History Nothing Stays Always Same Happens Us Ever

It would be suicide in the American academy to show too early an interest beyond your doctoral specialization: charges of everything from charlatanry to ambition would be levied and tenure denied. I've seen this first-hand. Tony Judt

What I am against is false optimism: the notion either that things have to go well, or else that they tend to, or else that the default condition of historical trajectories is characteristically beneficial in the long-run. Tony Judt

Else Beneficial Tend Well Am Go Condition False Historical Optimism Either Against Notion Things Default

I can still boss people around. I can still write. I can still read. I can still eat, and I can still have very strong views. Tony Judt

People Strong Eat Boss Write Read Around Still Very Views

What has gone catastrophically wrong in England and the States is that for 30 years we've lost the ability to talk about the state in positive terms. We've raised a generation or two of young people who don't think to ask, 'What can the state do that is good?' Tony Judt

I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next, a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of the Jewish matter. Tony Judt

Teacher Myself History Matter First See Above Only Voice Writer Participant Occasional Within Affairs Intellectual Left Commentator Discussion American Public Then Next European Jewish

History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another. It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it. Tony Judt

Words can make the illness a subject I can master, and not one that one simply emotes over. Tony Judt

Words Master Simply Over Make Subject Illness

I believe that if we think back to the period from F.D.R. through, let us say, Bush I, until the end of the Cold War, we lived through an artificial period in which American interests and European interests essentially dovetailed. Tony Judt

American social arrangements, economic arrangements, the degree of inequality in American life, the relatively small role played by the government in American public life and so forth, compares to exactly the opposite conditions in most of the European societies. Tony Judt

Life Government Degree Relatively Exactly Small Economic Most Inequality Arrangements Opposite Conditions Role American Public American Life Social Forth American Public Public Life European Compares Societies Played

There is nothing to be said for being crippled. You don't see the world better or clearer, nor do you develop some special set of skills by way of compensation. Tony Judt

You World Better Nothing Way Crippled See Some Develop Clearer Said Nor Being Skills Special Compensation Set

When you are in my classroom, you get everything from me. But you bloody well better give everything too. Tony Judt

Me You Better Too Everything Give Classroom Well Bloody Get

Apparently, the line you take on Israel trumps everything else in life. Tony Judt

Life You Else Everything Everything Else Take Israel Line Apparently

Reality is a powerful solvent. Tony Judt

Reality Solvent Powerful

I would say that I have become more radical as I have gotten older. I started out very radical when I was young, like most people, but I became less actively politically engaged in the middle of my life. Tony Judt

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