E. P. Thompson Quotes

• The missiles come first, and the justifications come second.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Thinking

• This going into Europe will not turn out to be the thrilling mutual exchange supposed. It is more like nine middle-aged couples with failing marriages meeting in a darkened bedroom in a Brussels hotel for a group grope.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I have become a prisoner of the peace movement. But you can’t say that the termination is coming and then say that you are going back to your own garden to dig.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Prisoner, Movement

• You know as a scientist that both were developed completely independently of each other in the laboratories. And only afterward were the political situations contrived out of which they could be justified.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Scientist, Political, Situations

• There are no European voices at Geneva, there are no European voices at START.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in European, Voices

• The readings of Soviet society are as many as the experts you speak to. In my view, it’s a society that is overdue for measures of democratization and organization.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Society

  Tags in Democratization, Organization

• I think that the U.S. does have this very much more open attitude, and I admire it very much and I think it’s very important to the world. But the information and the discussion sometimes come too late, after the effective decision has been made.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Decision

  Tags in United States, Effective

• The talk about balance, nuclear balance, seems to me to be metaphysical and doesn’t seem to be real at all.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Nuclear, Balance

• I will hear no talk that there are no intermediate-range weapons on the NATO side.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Weapons

• I think you will find scientists that think like you in Germany and Britain, and you will find politicians that think like Weinberger. I think the most bellicose ruling group in the Western world at the moment is the British.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Scientists, Thought

• Could I interrupt here, because there is an alternative explanation, which you are particularly well placed to examine. You know the argument that it is the alchemists in the laboratories who invent the sweet new kits.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Argument, Research

• I don’t care tuppence whether I’m forced into a leadership position or not. I’d much sooner not.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Leadership

  Tags in Self, Position

• For two decades the state has been taking liberties, and these liberties were once ours.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in State, Liberties

• I am convinced that we are in a terminal process.

  E. P. Thompson

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self, Convinced

E. P. Thompson (14)

Birth:	3rd February, 1924
Death:	28th August, 1993
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Historian, Writer

About

Edward Palmer "E. P." Thompson was born in Oxford, UK. He was a British historian, socialist, writer, and peace campaigner. He is probably best known today for his historical work on the British radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in particular The Making of the English Working Class. He also published the novel The Sykaos Papers and a collection of poetry.

Related Authors

• Alan Clark
• William Blum
• Louise Bernikow
• Leonard Alfred George Strong
• Edward Norman
• Terry Jones
• Carroll Quigley
• Sallust
• Edward Augustus Freeman
• C. L. R. James

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 31st May

Births

• 1948 - Duncan Hunter
• 1753 - Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
• 1819 - Walt Whitman
• 1943 - Sharon Gless
• 1884 - Phyllis Bottome

Deaths

• 1996 - Timothy Leary
• 2004 - Robert Quine
• 1981 - Barbara Ward
• 1962 - Adolf Eichmann
• 1847 - Thomas Chalmers