“... exclusive concentration on the Examiner and the Drapier’s Letters has the slightly magisterial self-consciousness of the expert bestowing his attention on the lesser works of an author he knows too well. These writings are important, but they are not Swift’s most important or most characteristic works, even in relation to Ehrenpreis’s chosen ...”

“... inclusion in The Interpretation Frege’s Philosophy of a series of emendations, additions and self-justifications pertaining to Frege: Philosophy of Language. The most remarkable instance of this is in the 11th chapter, ostensibly on Geach’s interpretation of Frege, which begins with a seemingly interminable apology for the way Geach’s views were ...”

“... part. To be called upon to defend our University against the attack of Irishmen, to be forced in self-defence to shoot down our countrymen – these are things which even the knowledge of duty well fulfilled cannot render anything but sad and distasteful.’ They remark, too, that while the attitude of many elders in the College may have been sterner, it was ...”

“... by a separate desire, he may well regard at least some of his desires as constitutive of the self he is. If then they are overridden, so is he. The values of science are not just the values of science. Neutrality, even if possible, may not always be desirable. Benevolence, in Runciman’s sense, may seem to some to tip into indifference. Impartiality is ...”

“... recalled (presumably he is using old diaries) and, of course, Kaspersen kills whales as a way to self-knowledge. He also dreams a wonderful dream of the meeting of an elephant and a singing whale ... Then comes the accidental encounter with the Japanese in 1926, a relationship which, for van der Post, was to be renewed in frightful circumstances 15 years ...”

“... mutual torment, and she was not. On the other hand, she could see an element of masochism and self-dramatisation in him, and he was blind to that. The torture had been going on ever since the birth of their first child – perhaps ever since Tolstoy forced his diary on his bride. His sexual appetite was insatiable and lasted his entire life: he was still ...”

“... career had he been born ten years earlier, in 1917. In an eerie bio-bibliography of this tainted self, he provides an oeuvre which runs from the late Expressionist, rhapsodic poetry of his Hitler Youth period, through the post-Stalingrad ‘poetry of lasting significance’, to the ‘fresh start’ mode of de-Nazified 1947. All of which pertains to ...”

“... the literate and the generality (doctors, schoolmasters, clergy, upper-class agitators going down, self-educated proletarians rising, utopian dreamers, militant sansculottes), the breaking-down of class solidarity carrying away ingrained prejudices, the emergence of hidden constants in human nature – Braudel’s ‘mythèmes’ and ‘gustèmes’. One thing ...”

“... Laon case seems to have been a direct model for both the others. The precise mixture of neurosis, self-deception and outright fraud in each case cannot be exactly reconstructed, but all these elements were certainly present among the demoniacs and their entourages. The possession of Marthe Brossier was much the most significant, timed as it was to coincide ...”

“... military for their part are much more fearful than the Jews realise of some kind of public Jewish self-defence. Provided that it is of a public nature. He does not represent the Argentine Armed Forces as monolithic: the author is obviously far more intimately acquainted with their divisions than he chooses to show here. Nor is his account of the extremes of ...”

“... is wooden and inert, yet the author’s verbal competence outstrips his dramatic skill. Flat, self-explicating characterisation of the kind Shakespeare nowhere commits, except for particular, framed effects, is standard. Though a few exchanges are terse and stichomythic, most drag painfully, while the villain’s soliloquies are soporific. As for the ...”

“... Inevitably, therefore, this review is in part autobiographical: it is a debate with a past self. Any discussion of the value of dialectics in biology must take in Lysenkoism, and it might as well start there. Lysenko is the millstone round the neck of the dialectical biologist. The acceptance of his views, under Party pressure, caused Russian biology ...”

“... Yet his book, though very personal and, where it chooses, opinionated, seems truly lacking in self-interest, a genuine tribute, sent, with deep respect, from one thousand-word-a-day man, living in exile out of disgust for his beloved country, to another who did the same, more restlessly, more absurdly even, yet not less patriotically. And the homage is ...”

“... she got on well with Mrs Pattison, who tolerated her husband’s little ways with martyred and self-regarding composure. Meta and Pattison met where they could: in London, walking in Kensington Gardens; at friends’ houses; for an occasional week at the Lodgings when the Rector’s wife was away and one of his nieces or another young friend could act as ...”

“... qualities, mixed in whatever proportions, that all cartoonists must possess. Fourth, his courage, self-confidence, cheek – this surely was the attribute that gave Low his special quality. Fifth, his ability to darken his tone, often literally, to measure up to the epic themes of war. These gifts were magnified by his professional longevity. Low tends to be ...”