Paul Johnson Quotes

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Paul Johnson

Profession : Journalist

Birth : November 2, 1928

The whole world depends on America ultimately, particularly Britain. And also, I love America - a marvelous country. But in a sense I don't worry about America because I think America has such huge strengths - particularly its freedom of thought and expression - that it's going to survive as a top nation for the foreseeable future.

Paul Johnson

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

Paul Johnson

One of the categories of people I don't like much are intellectuals. People say, 'Oh, you're an intellectual,' and I say, 'No!' What is an intellectual? An intellectual is somebody who thinks ideas are more important than people.

Paul Johnson

I very much wanted to live in Paris when I was in the army, and I was quite determined to. I could have become a dress designer: Dior was willing to take me on as an assistant, but he did not have an immediate vacancy.

Paul Johnson

When people talk about political correctness, the only element of any value is good manners.

Paul Johnson

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.

Paul Johnson

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

Paul Johnson

Mr. Obama would be a disheartening president even during a super boom, with his grim demeanor and empty rhetoric, as well as his obvious hatred of business bravado.

Paul Johnson

Germany's Angela Merkel exudes an atmosphere of elderly exhaustion and pooped-out pessimism. Britain's David Cameron, though by nature exuberant, feels he has to look and sound glum. And France's leader, Francois Hollande, seems determined to drive every successful businessman out of the country.

Paul Johnson

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

Paul Johnson

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

Paul Johnson

The only thing to be said for air travel is speed. It makes possible travel on a scale unimaginable before our present age. Between the ages of 20 and four-score I visited every country in Europe, all save two in Latin America, ditto in Africa, and most of Asia, not counting eight trips to Australia and 60 to the United States - all by air.

Paul Johnson

Is there any possibility of giving international air travel, which we all need and use and hate, a touch of glamour, or even of reliable, soulless efficiency? I suspect future historians will puzzle over our failure. But by then, of course, we shall be in the age of mass space travel, with its fresh and unimaginable crop of horrors.

Paul Johnson

The planet Earth, though not threatened with destruction by man-made global warming, is by no means indestructible. There are many unpredictable events within our solar system, and still more outside it, that could make Earth uninhabitable by humans.

Paul Johnson

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.

Paul Johnson

The image of the scientist who puts the pursuit of truth before anything else has been shattered and replaced by a man on the make or a quasi-religious enthusiast who wants to prove his case at any cost. Science is becoming the tool of campaigning warfare, in which truth is the first casualty.

Paul Johnson

It would be wrong to say I enjoy having rows, because that would be un-Christian. If people attack me, then I respond, or if they do very wicked things. Then they must be brought to book.

Paul Johnson

What strikes the historian surveying anti-Semitism worldwide over more than two millennia is its fundamental irrationality. It seems to make no sense, any more than malaria or meningitis makes sense.

Paul Johnson

In all its myriad manifestations, the language of anti-Semitism through the ages is a dictionary of non-sequiturs and antonyms, a thesaurus of illogic and inconsistency.

Paul Johnson

Indeed, the study of universities and the great men and women who have attended them leads me to think that the best of these schools are characterized not so much by what they teach and how they teach it but by the extent they provide opportunities and encouragement for students to teach themselves.

Paul Johnson