“... things; but I do not believe that he was engaged in ‘analysis’ of the sitter’s ‘private self’, or that this would have been ‘expected’. The portrait painter often depicted his subject’s figure in action in invented circumstances as a way of suggesting precisely that familiarity which he himself did not enjoy. One of the most popular and ...”

“... on Hopkins’s background, and his life as a young man. His extremely able and in some degree self-made father built up a flourishing business as an average adjuster and marine insurance broker; the firm is still going. Eldest of a large brood, Hopkins seems to have mildly disliked his family and got on badly with his father. But he was privileged, had an ...”

“... never became a good writer, since he wrote too much, too fast, on too many subjects, and without self-criticism and revision. Even at the time of his greatest influence, he was not taken very seriously as a theorist on the intellectual left, though he was, with Shaw, Wells, Marx, G.D.H. Cole and Tawney, among the authors who had had most influence on the ...”

“... concern for gentlemanly standards, that the House of Commons was ‘hardly the place for a self-respecting man’. His passion for serving on commissions, preferably royal ones, is curious, the more so because his first experience of such bodies was the one whose members were hell-bent on the retrocession of the Transvaal. This could have sickened him ...”

“... were unwilling to extend civil and political rights or to open themselves to electoral defeat. The self-deception, now, is clear. Interest rates in the North rose after the second oil-price rise in 1979, and the demand for imported food crops and other commodities began to decline. The cost of Southern countries’ debt went up, and their earnings went ...”

“... norms, one stressing dependency and subjection (the Stone model), the other early independence and self-reliance. All these conclusions are moderate, plausible and well-grounded. Yet in spite of the promising start made with Edward Barlow’s diary account of parting, they say little or nothing about the emotional structure of adolescence, or its difference ...”

“... or untruthfully, I can’t always judge, but more informatively than they are used to and more self-servingly than he should have. There are those, too, who say that it is inappropriate to receive a pension from the KGB and then spill its beans and those who believe that in speaking of the past one should respect the traditions of the past; that one should ...”

“... and Poland created the Jewish East End and led to the tripling of the Jewish population. Jewish self-confidence was reflected in the holding of the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition at the Albert Hall to mark Queen Victoria’s jubilee, and in the formation of the Jewish Historical Society of England six years later. Concern about integrating the new ...”

“... paid to the province of East Prussia, which soon became a scandal. Indirectly, the corruption and self-interest helped the Nazis: Hitler was the revenge of the little man on a Prussian élite that had wooed the peasantry and craftsmen for forty years with anti-semitism, antiliberalism and anti-socialism, but now found itself undone by an even more effective ...”

“... that ‘even with the ill-balanced terms of the marriage she was a bargain.’ That verdict seems self-contradictory and the whole picture misleading. Byron had heard that Sir Ralph Milbanke was ruined, a notion derided by Habakkuk, though in fact Sir Ralph’s reckless expenditure on electioneering had seriously encumbered his estates. Annabella was indeed ...”

“... smoke, but would instead fatten the worms which feed the birds which keep the London cats sleek, self-satisfied and asleep for 18 hours a day. While the other Jenny went off to spend the holiday weekend in Bradford (which gave more pause for thought about spending eternity in such eccentric company), I hunkered down with my Gazetteer to apprise myself of the ...”

“... seen as exemplary rather than as reason for Bartók’s relegation, always given that his music is self-evidently imaginative, beautiful, modern. By dint of extraordinary tact and inspiration, by means to be ascertained, indeed, by the Companion, Bartók created masterpieces in a troublesome century that are masterpieces of music alone. And the critics ...”

“... Vanessa could only be a family woman. Her perceptive editor remarks that she presented herself in self-defence as ‘unintellectual and uninformed’, and that she made a ‘carefully constructed comic façade’ out of her lack of interest in serious matters. She enjoyed describing an occasion when she had made a fool of herself at a dinner party by asking ...”

“... parties and, through force of personality, committed it to a succession of moral campaigns. The self-righteousness, authoritarian populism, obsession with ‘crusader politics’, lack of consideration for the feelings of Cabinet colleagues – all these traits can be found in both prime ministers. No doubt those in the know will also have noticed something ...”

“... it necessary to claim that there are human beings who lack the essential capacity of reasoning and self-determination. This suggests, rightly I think, that it is because all humans have those capacities, at least to some degree, that we find it morally wrong to deprive people of the freedom to exercise them. The demands of justice are based at least in part on ...”