Best Tony Judt Quotes
- I don't much mind being expelled from communities. Communities
- I grew up in a world where the social democratic state was the norm, not the exception. Democratic
- I know exactly how and where I am going to die. The only question is when. Die
- I'm not sure I've learned anything new about life; but I've had to think harder about death and what comes after for other people. Anything New
- I've lost count of the interviews I've done about my illness and its relationship to my ideas and writing. Count
- It does irritate me when I am described as a controversialist and commentator on Israel. Commentator
- My history writing was based on what I saw in strange, exotic places rather than just reading books. Based
- Reality is a powerful solvent. Inspirational
- Social democracy does not represent an ideal future; it does not even represent the ideal past. Democracy
- The pleasures of mental agility are much overstated, inevitably - as it now appears to me - by those not exclusively dependent upon them. Agility
- We are not merely historians but also and always citizens. Citizens
- 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… American
- As citizens of a free society, we have a duty to look critically at our world. But if we think we know what is wrong,… Act
- 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… Bad
- 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… Academic
- I was born accidentally. I lived accidentally in London. We nearly migrated to New Zealand. So much of my life has been a product of… Accidentally
- 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… Better
- Undergraduates today can select from a swathe of identity studies.... The shortcoming of all these para-academic programs is not that they concentrate on a given… Academic
- We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will… Act
- As recently as the 1970s, the idea that the point of life was to get rich and that governments existed to facilitate this would have… Been
- Contrast 1968, when the CEO of General Motors took home, in pay and benefits, about sixty-six times the amount paid to a typical GM worker.… Amount
- 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… Beneficial
- Healthcare reform is a paradigmatic case. It is self-evidently necessary and inevitable and has been on the agenda for 35 years, and the political class… Agenda
- We need to start talking about inequality again; we need to start talking about the inequities and unfairnesses and the injustices of an excessively divided… Assets
- 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… Affairs