“... which this contrast emerges is one of this collection’s main achievements. Modern Scepticism may in fact be descended from Arcesilaus, Carneades, Aenisedemus and Sextus. But we shall see that the ancients would almost certainly not have recognised it as their legitimate heir. The opponents of ancient Scepticism, the ‘Dogmatists’, were those who ...”

“... in the tower, although Tudor propaganda inclines us now to think that it was Henry VII and not Richard III who did them in. Shakespeare’s efforts are just as counter-productive here as any claim by the ministry of lies. In that context one of the oddest stories is ‘the horrid tale of the bloody Colonel Kirk’, as investigated by Disraeli’s father ...”

“... how such a modern self as yourself was much less content to be nothing much. Sexual intercourse may have started in 1963, with the Beatles’ first LP and so on, but intercourse of many another sort was at the same time starting to stop. Drinking and dancing went on, but in a different way – the clubs stopped being places where young and old of a similar ...”

“... Capote have severely diminished even as the reputation of O’Connor has steadily risen. McCullers may be perceived in some quarters as a writer of young adult classics whose work has not transcended its era; Capote is little read except for his atypical In Cold Blood, which was the inspiration for more complex and ambitious non-fiction novels by Norman Mailer ...”

“... Shaw had observed only a harmless drudge, Mr Laurence sees ‘an exacting science’, a work that may be ‘treated artfully’, and the culmination (like an elevation to the peerage) of a lifetime’s achievement. It was nevertheless Shaw’s blindness to the beauties of bibliography that opened the way for Mr Laurence’s magnum opus. Shaw’s dislike of ...”

“... his scientists’. Harrington’s sensible suggestion that legislators should assume that citizens may be wicked is taken as an assertion of original sin. But Dr Davis has illuminating things to say about Harrington’s ‘basically federal’ system of government, in which the municipal boroughs were ‘absorbed into the county’, and about his deference to ...”

“... is not, it emerges, his seamy career in espionage, but the relationship with his own father Richard (‘Rick’), who has just died. In addition to his employer’s top secrets, Magnus has another box with him. This is his father’s old green filing-cabinet, which at last he has prised open. Rick Pym was, like Cornwell’s father, a confidence man ...”

“... Amory reports, is ‘the most ancient in Europe that it has been possible to tabulate’. (There may be other contenders – but who’s tabulating?) At her memorial service Noel Annan told the story – it’s repeated here – of how ‘at a dance she heard O’Neill ask his partner to sit out on the stairs. “I don’t want to do that,” objected the ...”

“... Faced with this kind of derogation, and considering how much time writing reviews can take up, it may be worthwhile to take stock. What is the point of taking on regular reviewing assignments? Shippey’s answer is something of a let-down. The point, it seems, is that reviewing, with its ‘discipline’ of ‘real’ deadlines, concentrates the academic ...”

“... a cogent statement of empiricism would be like in any language other than English. This last claim may at first sight seem absurd to anyone who has read the sometimes witty and always rigorous exposition of logical positivist doctrine that appeared in Erkenntnis in its great days. And it is of course true that in the Thirties in Oxford the young A.J. Ayer was ...”

“... himself of this opinion as he returned to the company of Bronson Alcott and Jones Very. One may well feel that the defensive condescensions of provincialism could hardly go further. Clearly, Emerson was more at ease among the undemanding tranquillities of Concord than amid the provocative and turbulent stimulations of Europe. He lived on until ...”

“... retained the mind-set of the inter-war years and saw no need for radical change. And what, it may be asked, was wrong with that? These people (few of whom in fact had ‘upper class’ backgrounds) were impregnated with the kind of social conscience that had become commonplace among the professional classes since the days of ‘New Liberals’ like ...”

“... the Fifties, quotes Eden as writing just before he resigned the premiership in January 1957: ‘It may be than the United States’s attitude to us in the Middle East dates from our refusal to give up Buraimi.’ And Burrows asks: ‘Can it really have been that important?’ It was. Strictly speaking, Buraimi was one desert village in the middle of ...”

“... what goes on in our heads knowable, legible and marketable. Facebook’s capacity for surveillance may be unparalleled, but its interest in measuring, monitoring and managing our feelings isn’t. Psychologists and behavioural economists gather data about feelings from a range of sources, online and off, in an effort to understand and better predict people’s ...”

“... on the grounds that they reward the effort handsomely. But the same is true of manuscripts.Cotton may not have known what he had. His librarian, Richard James, labelled the manuscript: ‘Vetus poema Anglicanum in quo sub insomnii figmento multa ad religionem et mores spectantia explicantur’ (a poem in old English ...”