“... contrast, the sermons of Donne were marred, Eliot thought, by their proto-modernity, an excess of self-indulgent personalism. Donne, ‘the religious spell-binder . . . the flesh-creeper, the sorcerer of emotional orgy’, had about him the whiff of ‘impure motives’ and ‘facile success’. Interestingly, in developing this comparison, Eliot mobilised ...”

“... of a Ben Jonson play – ambition, assertion of power, mafioso cunning, subtlety, even fear and self-preservation or (in the case of secret police chiefs) a taste for cruelty. Few wonder about the inveterate hardliners who seem to present no occasion for historical revision, Rákosi, Suslov or Gerö, mistaken though it is to take their inflexibility for ...”

“... to wishful thinking. Kennedy’s response to the Civil Rights movement was ‘largely motivated by self-serving political considerations’, Dallek writes. Unlike his primary opponent Hubert Humphrey, a hero of the Civil Rights movement, or his running mate, Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy didn’t really care about Civil Rights. In his campaign he tried to please ...”

“... be tempted to aspirate it out of the deference accorded to rank. Having worked her way along the self-help shelf, Mugglestone goes for evidence of a more relaxed but equally instructive kind to the novelists, or those of them who choose to represent variations in pronunciation or usage orthographically, the more recognisably to bring out the differences ...”

“... to chime with public discourse and concerns. Thomas was still elaborating his fantasies of the self, but these now included the suffering selves around him, thus in ‘Ceremony after a Fire Raid’: ‘Myselves/The grievers/Grieve.’ And, even when refusing to mourn, his verse is attuned to what occasioned the mourning of others. Meanwhile, Eliot was ...”

“... Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen moderates and speed the transition to Iraqi self-reliance,’ he said in June. The NSC is more explicit in its July report. These small bands of political operatives, it says, ‘are charged with supporting moderate elements against extremists in their areas of responsibility and launching projects that ...”

“... some nine months before the war, that Israel would bring down Syria’s new regime, part of a self-fulfilling logic? Were words, on both sides, the real protagonists? The attitude of the Israeli security elite to Egyptian military movements always went hand in hand with the question ‘do they recognise our superiority?’ – which is, of course, a ...”

“... idea of a “new song” is highlighted in several psalms. In a sense, this is a kind of self-advertisement of the psalmist, as if to say “here is a fresh and vibrant psalm that you have never heard before.”’ It is remarkable that, in some two thousand of such notes, most of them longer than these, very little outside of Alter’s own ...”

“... as part of a management plan. Once reintroduced, though, they might show signs of being a bit self-willed: white-tailed eagles have an eight-foot wingspan. Recently, one took a flight round the Asda car park in Dunfermline. People were so alarmed they called the police.If there’s a breath of wild at Asda, in the furthest flung places you might find ...”

“... proceeds in this way, but it feels cogent and compelling even when there is little more than self-belief holding it up. This is certainly a more meaningful kind of inquiry than the more fashionable sub-genre of the celebrity suspect. Over the years these have included Queen Victoria’s grandson, the Duke of Clarence; a celebrated doctor, Sir William ...”

“... that he was unaware of any particular quality that Rosebery had demonstrated save a talent for self-advertisement. Rosebery said that Balfour had done wonderfully well ‘for an amateur politician’. In 1911, Balfour cautioned the Palace against awarding the Order of Merit to Rosebery. Five years later, Rosebery bitterly opposed Balfour’s OM. It is ...”

“... McLaren reminds us, was first used in English in 1748, implying, as he says, a new self-consciousness about what manliness might be. Impotence was no joke, and women might be another species. In the 19th century​ , according to McLaren, gender differences were both privileged – over differences of rank, status, profession, race and religion ...”

“... to overcome his opponents; his prose and his public remarks were invariably leaden, sarcastic and self-righteous, and were no match for William F. Buckley’s elegant scorn. In his view, he was a victim, pure and simple: ‘the principal journalistic scapegoat for the rise to power of Fidel Castro and for the success of the Cuban Revolution’, a latter-day ...”

“... be able to impersonate another would require a surpassing intelligence, an extraordinary degree of self-control and an ever-alert discipline – all qualities Frau Tschaikovsky in no way possesses.’ (Frau Tschaikovsky was Anna’s official name at the time.) But in reality no such qualities are required, only a mulish determination to keep it up and a ...”

“... on a tray’ – bring back to Mrs Dalloway the echoes of her competence, her centrality and self-confidence. Lucy, her parlourmaid, thinks her mistress, who is ‘mistress of silver, of linen, of china’, the loveliest among the guests at the party. ‘Thank you, thank you,’ Mrs Dalloway returns, ‘in gratitude to her servants generally for helping ...”