“... insist that it is their enemies who constitute a priesthood: ‘the death-of-language writers are self-ordained priests’ (James Stalker, in Greenbaum). John Silverlight, in his excerpted columns about usage and abusage that constitute Words, is prompt to make clear that he is playing down, not laying down, the law: ‘What I am not, to the disappointment of ...”

“... individual renouncements. The instinctive life of man is one of unbridled aggression and egoistic self-satisfaction. The whole structure of Culture has been designed to put prohibitions and curbs upon him.’ For Elias, as for Freud, the principle is general – sport is dragged into the argument simply by way of illustration: e.g. Roman gladiators fought one ...”

“... Exotic foods on every side. And then Air India, first class, back home! Maybe my condition was self-inflicted. Or it could have been that conference. Colitis can be set off by an allergy. Just think of all those exotic and not always compatible intellectual spices thrown together: Bella Akhmadulina and Chinua Achebe, Régis Debray and Mulk Raj ...”

“... the innate political wisdom of the Polish people, requires a suspension of disbelief. The ‘self-limiting revolution’ of the American subtitle looks like a marker set down for a future which will not now take place. There is, in fact, a contradiction between his highly realistic narrative and his idealism, which amounts almost to an emotional ...”

“... one might call it a civilian’s version of ‘I was only obeying orders’ – is about as far as self-accusation goes in these pages. I suppose it is inevitable that actors will put most of their scientific rigour, if not in some cases their entire capacity for self-criticism, into their literally life-enhancing work on ...”

“... it seems likely that Orwell needed some symbolic manumission in order to emancipate his writing self. One notes, in support of this, the prominence in the novels of heroes like Gordon Comstock who break with their stultifying families. And it is interesting, in the light of the works reviewed here, that Patricia Highsmith also seems to have been one of ...”

“... of two distinct missions for higher education. The first mission was collegiate education, self-contained, featuring a four-year first degree, a more or less prescribed curriculum, intense classroom discussion and round-the-clock argument on great themes. (The heavily, possibly one-sided intellectual dimension of American liberal arts education ...”

“... the honesty with which Russell faced the ruin of his intellectual projects and the duplicity and self-deception of his marital and extra-marital dealings. That is a harsh view. Whatever he became later, the Russell of these early letters is emotionally incompetent rather than duplicitous, self-laceratingly prim and proper ...”

“... the matter of making money, the new monopolists and bureaucrats have shed embarrassment, shame and self-discipline. Everyone knows about ‘fat cats’ but few identify two recent sources of their fat – both innovations of the Thatcher years. The first is the ‘remuneration committee’, made up of non-executive directors, which, usually with the help of ...”

“... She concentrates on 17th-century Holland, where one particular stance – indicating, she thinks, self-possession – almost achieved the ‘status of a national attribute’. A surprisingly large proportion of militia company portraits include one or more figures with an arm pugnaciously akimbo: usually not the commanding officer, who might consider himself ...”

“... of his character. ‘For most of his life,’ Woodhouse writes, D’Annunzio’s sole concern was self-gratification and glory: to make hit existence as interesting and preferably as joyful as possible for himself, whatever the consequences for others; to create a work of art from his life and to immortalise it in words. There were, it is true, moments when ...”

“... period, a lawless Wild West of unmeaning and misunderstanding that was at some point tamed by the self-discipline and integrity of politicians and the formation of the national media which until recently we held in such high regard. This second assumption is equally misguided. Politicians have always lied, or half-lied, and the media has always leaned one way ...”

“... after Hiroshima – whose political involvements were intense and important to their sense of self. Fermi loved hiking, the outdoor life and manly physical games; he had pub-quiz-winner tendencies about all sorts of scientific things. He insisted on being recognised as the smartest person in any room – the alpha male who discovered the nature of beta ...”

“... and directors, and will very likely be heard in due course at Branagh’s own, gives this ending a self-consciousness and self-reflexiveness which further align it with the habits of the last plays. It is a little inconvenient for accounts of Shakespeare’s last period that insist on explaining it in terms of a return to ...”

“... had been. But a polype could also be a cancerous tumour; and the notion of the LCS as a cancerous, self-replicating, uncontrollable growth, whose numbers ‘exceed the powers of probable computation’, is everywhere in the descriptions of the Society by ministers and crown lawyers. Two things about the Government’s attitude to the organisation of the LCS ...”