Like many physical diseases, anti-Semitism is highly infectious, and can become endemic in certain localities and societies. Though a disease of the mind, it is by no means confined to weak, feeble, or commonplace intellects; as history sadly records, its carriers have included men and women of otherwise powerful and subtle thoughts.

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

Euphemism is a human device to conceal the horrors of reality.

Paul Johnson

As a child I found railroad stations exciting, mysterious, and even beautiful, as indeed they often were.

Paul Johnson

Margaret Thatcher had more impact on the world than any woman ruler since Catherine the Great of Russia. Not only did she turn around - decisively - the British economy in the 1980s, she also saw her methods copied in more than 50 countries.

Paul Johnson

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.

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

The most intimidating world leader was Lyndon Johnson, who became U.S. President when John Kennedy was assassinated. He exulted in this power and liked to inspire fear.

Paul Johnson

In the past, the U.S. has shown its capacity to reinvent its gifts for leadership. During the 1970s, in the aftermath of the Nixon abdication and the Ford and Carter presidencies, the whole nation peered into the abyss, was horrified by what it saw and elected Ronald Reagan as president, which began a national resurgence.

Paul Johnson

I was very fond of Princess Diana. She used to have me over to lunch to ask my advice. I'd give her good advice, and she'd say: 'I entirely agree. Paul, you're so right.' Then she'd go and do the opposite.

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

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

Paul Johnson

Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof - of which history offers so many examples - that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science.

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

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 be editor of the 'New Statesman!' But I never wanted to be prime minister, except maybe as a little boy.

Paul Johnson

Courage is the essential element in any great public man or woman.

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

The freedom enjoyed in Western society under the rule of law and constitutional government explains both the quality of its civilization and its wealth.

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

Next to courage, willpower is the most important thing in politics.

Paul Johnson