E.P. Thompson Quotes & Sayings

I am convinced that we are in a terminal process. — E.P. Thompson

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

There is not a thought that is being thought in the West or the East that is not active in some Indian mind — E.P. Thompson

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

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

I do not see class as a 'structure', nor even as a 'category', but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships ... the notion of class entails the notion of historical relationship ... And class happens when some men, as a result of common experiences (inherited or shared), feel and articulate the identity of their interests as between themselves, and as against other men whose interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs — E.P. Thompson

At a certain point one ceases to defend a certain view of history; one must defend history itself. — E.P. Thompson

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

I will hear no talk that there are no intermediate-range weapons on the NATO side. — E.P. Thompson

Jurors have found, again and again, and at critical moments, according to what is their sense of the rational and just. If their sense of justice has gone one way, and the case another, they have found "against the evidence," ... the English common law rests upon a bargain between the Law and the people: The jury box is where the people come into the court: The judge watches them and the people watch back. A jury is the place where the bargain is struck. The jury attends in judgment, not only upon the accused, but also upon the justice and the humanity of the Law. — E.P. Thompson

The missiles come first, and the justifications come second. — E.P. Thompson

In this Postscript I distinguish references back to the revised text of this book by placing these in italics thus (262), from references to the works of other authors under discussion, which are thus (p. 162). account — E.P. Thompson

The talk about balance, nuclear balance, seems to me to be metaphysical and doesn't seem to be real at all. — E.P. Thompson

There are no European voices at Geneva, there are no European voices at START. — E.P. Thompson

I don't care tuppence whether I'm forced into a leadership position or not. I'd much sooner not. — E.P. Thompson

For two decades the state has been taking liberties, and these liberties were once ours. — E.P. Thompson

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

The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the 'secrets' which they hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which they do tell us. These are already pre-digested, and then are sicked up as little gobbits of authorised spew. The columns of defense correspondents in the establishment sheets serve as the spittoons. — E.P. Thompson

The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was present at its own making. — E.P. Thompson

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

We must not look at the past with the enormous condescension of posterity. — E.P. Thompson

In the "free world" (Natopolis) the centres of ideological orthodoxy are rarely defined. The diversity of intellectual trends within the orthodoxy, the indeterminate and shifting character of its boundaries, the existence of real centres of dissent (and the licence given to even Stalinist opposition)--all these conspire to create the central illusion of "Natopolitan" culture, that there is in fact no orthodoxy but only an infinite variety of opinions among which one is free to choose. — E.P. Thompson

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