“... their Scottishness, and her belated vindication supplying an implicit focus for their collective self-assertion. In the age of post-Revolutionary national movements, Mary becomes an analogue of Marianne (emblem of her people’s liberty, for whom the fraternal citizenry are willing to shed their blood), or even of Marie-Antoinette (personification of her ...”

“... went on to open other clubs in Europe, while in Paris Chez Régine opened in 1960, catering to the self-styled beautiful people. The upmarket thrills of Régine’s enjoyed by the American jet-set in turn inspired New York’s Le Club, although it didn’t last long, closing soon after a new venue in New York took off in 1961: the Peppermint Lounge. The ...”

“... of the two defeated republics; not to speak of the relatively early return to them of a measure of self-government. This last move he described as putting the Boers ‘into a position to uphold and expand their primitive lust for racial domination’ – a statement seized on by various British biographers and essayists as evidence of how concerned he was ...”

“... and between them the Crisps spent a lot of money. They were, Colley says, ‘young, divided, self-inventing individuals with something to prove’, and though they were hardy and experienced travellers they were not experienced in London society. There were two children, Burrish and Elizabeth Maria. A fashionable man-midwife was retained, and twice over ...”

“... about the organisation, which has proved an intellectual sink-hole, down which swirl the drearily self-serving memoirs of its one-time functionaries and mind-numbing pieties from assorted well-wishers in the universities. There is a reason for the peculiar deadness of this output. The UN is a political entity without any independent will. If we set aside its ...”

“... makes flux an explicit theme as the narrator tries to identify the ‘ghostly constant’ of the self. It is deliberately ambitious in ways that weren’t readily perceived; critics seemed relieved that Graham had at last ‘found his voice’, though the poet was always more interested in evicting himself from each new position gained. ‘What do I write to ...”

“... benefactor of Israel and of the tyrants who rule the Islamic birthplace in Saudi Arabia. The four self-declared leaders pronounced that To kill the Americans and their allies – civilians and military – is an individual duty incumbent upon every Muslim in all countries, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Holy Mosque from their grip, so that ...”

“... Donovan, a bit like Dan Bern without the sense of humour, or the critical distance. A.J. Weberman, self-styled Dylanologist, burrowed into the singer’s rubbish bins to try to make sense of him. And countless others have applied themselves to more conventional forms of criticism. Among the most deep and distinguished of this last kind of interpreter is ...”

“... think there could be no middle ground: between people and non-people. The humour may be seen as self-justificatory: if Plautus can imagine that slaves are just like doors, then there’s no harm in beating them up. But it may also seem symptomatic of a fear on the part of the slave-owning classes, that at least part of their property may be animate after ...”

“... current in which one would expect to find obedience rather than dissent, conformity rather than self-criticism, doctrinaire ideologues rather than introspective individuals’. But his story suggests that it is our expectations about that ‘current’ which need to be adjusted. If al-Suri remained in the good graces of al-Qaida, it’s probably because his ...”

“... breeding in men’s souls knavish and tricky ways, it renders the city faithless and loveless.’ Self-sufficiency, autarkeia, was always preferable, trade at best a necessary evil. Only Pericles, according to Thucydides, had positive things to say about an open commercial society: The greatness of our city brings it about that all the good things from all ...”

“... two essays, on the soul and on man, that showed a misanthropic worldview (society is rooted in self-preservation and violence, ‘pity is a forged sentiment’) and a readiness to mock the ignorance of scientific authorities while passing off familiar arguments as his own. The essays earned him notoriety, if not glory; Diderot and Voltaire wrote ...”

“... and vomiting. There is no division between the public and private in her world, and therefore no self to do the choosing with. There is no possibility for her of making the choice to be the kind of woman who isn’t from the wrong side, who won’t be the kind of woman who inevitably gets pregnant and has an abortion. She’s been ‘fucked from all ...”

“... to have run into feminist theory in some form or other. She needed re-education, constructive self-criticism. But women of all classes watched these films, and they could all get the message. Films are much more likely to be overtly macho and misogynistic than television programmes. Men dictate what films they, their girlfriends and their families will ...”

“... to assume the receptive attitude, that cardinal virtue in women’. ‘Her illness was a form of self-assertion,’ Strouse adds, and it was soon decided that she should go to Bournemouth, where they knew how to take such things seriously. Alice liked the ‘neutrality’ of the watering place and the sense of there being something to be gained from knowing ...”