“... that we are whatever we summon the will to do.’ But Murdoch was scornful of this heroic self-image, writing that the gloom characteristic of existentialist writing ‘is superficial and conceals elation’. She had no use for voluntarism about value in either its French or British form: value requires us to turn our attention away from ...”

“... of this impact in the 19th and 20th centuries: that is to say, since the emancipation and self-emancipation of the Jews began in the late 18th century. Between their expulsion from Palestine in the first century AD and the 19th century, the Jews lived within the wider society of gentiles, whose languages they adopted as their own and whose cuisine ...”

“... leading to what is, at times, a rather functionalist picture of Athens as a lean, mean, self-cleaning machine. Undoubtedly it is important to see punishments as part of a symbolic system, but too much emphasis on symbolism can lead to misunderstanding – a digression on the symbolism of the figs which form part of the word sykophant (literally ...”

“... and all. It is not often that a man so eagerly reveals himself to be an officious, loquacious, self-important prig. I am not condemning him by the standards of our time rather than his own. His contemporaries thought ill of him too. Nowhere in his letter does he indicate the welfare of the ‘women’ or ‘girls’ to be of concern to him: he refers only ...”

“... rights derive from violence, all ownership from appropriation or robbery’. The economy was a self-generating, self-correcting system which owed nothing to government or to conscious design, and at its best depended on the unfettered play of the energies and appetites of men. Hayek modified this alarming thesis, but he ...”

“... questions slavery’s centrality in the conflict – but that it too easily blends with the self-congratulatory complacency of the American civil religion, flattening the complexity of motives and reducing tragedy to melodrama. The quest for historical understanding is engulfed by the condemnation of the obvious wrong. ‘It was his business to inveigh ...”

“... into the world. Earlier he laments ‘that whole sombre thing called reflection’, in which the self becomes its own object of relentless scrutiny and self-punishment. If one wants to keep a promise, one must burn memory into the will, submit to – or submit oneself to – a reign of terror in the name of ...”

“... to 9/11, sanctioned by international law and a broad coalition; the objectives were those of self-defence and altruism. Al-Qaida has killed and continues to try to kill innocent citizens, and it is right to prevent them. It is also right to defeat the Taliban, to bring development and an effective legitimate state to Afghanistan, and to stabilise ...”

“... in the English Renaissance (1995), demolished the fashion for ‘decentring’ the early modern self and reducing it to the play of language. She reminded us that such writers as Montaigne and Shakespeare had their own historically specific forms of scepticism, and that when Hamlet says he has that within that passes show we should explore not dismiss his ...”

“... were held on divorce and abortion, while charges of sexual abuse tore into the Church’s self-image, exposing guardians as predators, the sinners as victims). Local bishops, confronted with visionaries and their followers, often chose scepticism, if not outright condemnation; were they not given to doubt, the shrines would spring up in greater ...”

“... Henry St George, the older novelist, offers the young writer Paul Overt a demonstration in self-sufficiency. He tells him a writer would do better not to marry, to put his passion into his work. Then marries the girl they both admire. That doesn’t stop Paul Overt offering an encomium to his elder and better. ‘Your talent’s so great that it’s ...”

“... his bid to build a $2.6 billion high-speed rail link between Orlando and Tampa was based on his self-proclaimed reputation as the man who rescued Britain’s railways; when he pitched for rail business in India he said: ‘I have the experience to upgrade a crumbling network. In Britain we took over a dilapidated part of the network about 15 years ago and ...”

“... spa town, Pechorin befriends a like-minded doctor called Werner. The two men, Pechorin thinks with self-satisfaction, share a cold egotism: ‘Sad things are funny to us. Funny things are sad to us. And in general, to tell the truth, we are indifferent to everything apart from our selves.’ Pechorin delights in destroying the weak illusions of this ...”

“... and frequently nodding off mid-sentence, only to rouse himself for a renewed bout of defiance and self-pity before slumping back again. Branch leaves him still talking to himself, and wonders if the president is suffering from narcolepsy, or something worse. Through all this, a clear picture of Clinton’s passions and priorities emerges. The things he loves ...”

“... are potentially released. Thus, in a way, ‘craft’ tends to connote not merely discipline and self-discipline, but a kind of restraint that will eventually be identified as minimalism, in another thematic opposition, never theorised directly, which runs centrally through McGurl’s book. From this perspective, maximalism is rhetoric and ...”