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“Van Buren, like many American master-politicians since, was quite capable of combining party ruthlessness with high-mindedness. He was a political schizophrenic, admitting he abused power occasionally and vowing never to do it again (he did of course). ... American political history has since thrown up repeated exemplars of what might be called the Van Buren Syndrome --- men who could combine true zeal for the public interest with fanatical devotion to the party principle.”

Politics InsanityMartin Van Buren
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“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. A young writer must cross many psychological barriers to acquire confidence in his capacity to produce good work-especially his first full-length book-and he cannot do this by staring at a piece of blank paper, searching for the perfect sentence.”

IfsWritingFirstsBookLastsYoungPerfectPiecesProducePaperCapacityCrossesSentencesPsychologicalStaringAcquireBarriersLengthBlankGood WorkResortsDissatisfiedYoung WritersBlank Paper
Author:Paul Johnson
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“The urge to distribute wealth equally, and still more the belief that it can be brought about by political action, is the most dangerous of all popular emotions. It is the legitimation of envy, of all the deadly sins the one which a stable society based on consensus should fear the most. The monster state is a source of many evils; but it is, above all, an engine of envy.”

ShouldStillsStatesActionPoliticalEvilBeliefFearWealthSinEmotionDangerousDangerSourceEnvyMonstersUrgesEnginesStableConsensusPolitical ActionDeadly Sins
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“It is one of the many ironies of this period that, at a time when the intelligentsia were excoriating Mellon for tax-evasion, and contrasting the smooth-running Soviet planned economy with the breakdown in America, he was secretly exploiting the frantic necessities of the Soviet leaders to form the basis of one of America's most splendid public collections”

RunningAmericaFormLeaderEconomyPeriodsTaxesBasesIronyCollectionsSovietSmoothPhilanthropySplendidBreakdownFranticEvasionTax Evasion
Book:Modern times: the world from the twenties to the nineties
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“My grandfather used to say, "Learn to like art, music and literature deeply and passionately. They will be your friends when things are bad". It is true: at this time of year, when days are short and dark, and one hardly dares to open the newspapers, I turn, not vainly either, to the great creators of the past for distraction, solace and help.”

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Author:Paul Johnson
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“Bismarck had cunningly taught the parties not to aim at national appeal but to represent interests. They remained class or sectional pressure-groups under the Republic. This was fatal, for it made the party system, and with it democratic parliamentarianism, seem a divisive rather than a unifying factor. Worse: it meant the parties never produced a leader who appealed beyond the narrow limits of his own following.”

MadeSeemsInterestPartyLeaderClassGroupsTaughtLimitsPressureAimDemocraticFollowingFactorsAppealsRepublicUnifyingPressure GroupsBismarck
Author:Paul Johnson
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“If the decline of Christianity created the modern political zealot - and his crimes - so the evaporation of religious faith among the educated left a vacuum in the minds of Western intellectuals easily filled by secular superstition. There is no other explanation for the credulity with which scientists, accustomed to evaluating evidence, and writers, whose whole function was to study and criticize society, accepted the crudest Stalinist propaganda at its face value. They needed to believe; they wanted to be duped.”

IfsMindBelieveWholeWantedFacesPoliticalValuesLeftReligiousChristianityStudyModernCrimeNeededEvidenceScientistFunctionFilledWesternAcceptedEducatedPropagandaExplanationCriticizeDeclineSuperstitionsSecularAccustomedReligious FaithVacuumsCredulityZealotFace ValueEvaporation
Author:Paul Johnson
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“His (Lenin's)humanitarianism was a very abstract passion. It embraced humanity in general but he seems to have had little love for, or even interest in, humanity in particular. He saw the people with whom he dealt, his comrades, not as individuals but as receptacles for his ideas. On that basis, and no other, they were judged. He judged man not by their moral qualities but by their views, or rather the degree to which they accepted his.”

PeopleMenLittlesIdeasSeemsHumanityPassionIndividualInterestViewsQualityMoralSawsParticularDegreesBasesAcceptedAbstractJudgedHumanitarianismComradeLittle Love
Book:Modern Times: A History of the World From the 1920s to the Year 2000
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“If anti-Semitism is a variety of racism, it is a most peculiar variety, with many unique characteristics. In my view as a historian, it is so peculiar that it deserves to be placed in a quite different category. I would call it an intellectual disease, a disease of the mind, extremely infectious and massively destructive.”

IfsMindDifferentViewsDiseaseUniqueIntellectualRacismDeserveVarietyCharacteristicsDestructiveCategoriesHistorianPeculiarAnti SemitismUnique Characteristics
Author:Paul Johnson
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