“... a provision granting Montenegro the right to call a referendum on independence, premised on a ‘self-determination’ clause that had been drafted into the Yugoslav constitution of 1990, itself never ratified. The EU succeeded only in requiring that Đukanović delay the poll by three years – he would wait four – and raise the threshold to 55 per cent ...”

“... whether or not she was joking. Was this a touch of gallows humour? Or was it a genuine whine of self-pity? Moore doesn’t spend much time trying to dissect her personality, on the grounds that what was most interesting about it was on the surface. But he does devote a chapter to recounting the failure of her enemies to understand her properly. By the ...”

“... of a shipbuilding race were utterly engaged. This mass of metal had become the symbol of national self-respect. To leave her unfinished would have been as unthinkable as, shall we say, to scuttle half the fleet.’This year, national self-respect didn’t seem to be at stake in Port Glasgow, though residents who knew the ...”

“... a riot by these same agricultural workers the year after he published Rural Rides. Cobbett saw how self-inflated governments could sit by and watch lives crumble. His discriminating rage has the tang of today. ‘The system of managing the affairs of the nation,’ he wrote in Cottage Economy, ‘has made all flashy and false, and has put all things out of ...”

“... up lightly, still less to make a profession of. Some film stars have been said to lack a stable self of their own, to live only in the public appearance of a bundle of different roles. Given Plato’s conceit of the actors as so many extensions of the poet, for him it is the dramatist who is like that. Not a person who will contribute to the austerely ...”

“... Sasha, a biker from Odesa, was tired, defiant and knowing, full of terse and slightly self-conscious veteran’s talk, though he only joined up on the day after the invasion. He took part in the operation to clear the Russians from Posad-Pokrovske in March and has been there ever since. ‘Stupid people dig shallow trenches’ is one of his ...”

“... deemed guilty then not only do people risk nothing by acknowledging guilt (in fact, it becomes a self-regarding exercise), but the culpability of particular individuals is masked. It appears as if injustice is inevitable, beyond our control. Ironically, the idea of collective guilt enables personal irresponsibility.But Connolly went further. ‘You’re ...”

“... view of the state and a paternalistic view of the people, both views determined by the collective self-interest of the deep state actors themselves. There is of course truth in all this. But states – at any rate, all states that endure – have their hidden depths and, for very cogent reasons, make a point of veiling what they get up to – let’s speak ...”

“... by Greenspan and others was unprecedented. Historically, US corporations had been largely self-financing, paying for their investments largely out of retained profits. By the end of the 1990s, however, they were borrowing at record-breaking levels (compared to output) in order to fund investment, while also financing themselves by way of equity issues ...”

“... them were local, not outsiders; and that all the British army’s efforts were being drawn into self-protection. The operation’s justification was itself; the men drew strength from protecting one another. I went out on patrol with them several times. We tramped silently through the cold looks of Gereshk market and crossed in thin-skinned vehicles the ...”

“... to carry the weight of a man who accidentally steps on the trap door. It must carry a label on self-adhesive vinyl, black on yellow, measuring 250 by 200 mm, saying DO NOT STAND ON THIS TRAP DOOR.’ Who was this far-off bureaucrat? Did a superior send him a memo telling him that there was need for a fresh trap-door instruction? Why? Were they constructing ...”

“... will say that such reactions are merely the consequence of the necessary jolt to the feelings and self-esteem of a hitherto protected elite as they are brought into ‘the real world’. But there is obviously something much deeper at work. It is the alienation from oneself that is experienced by those who are forced to describe their activities in misleading ...”

“... hostile and magically powerful element that could cover the whole earth.’ Expelling dirt is as self-defeating as it is murderous. Someone – a race, a sex – has to take the ...”

“... Said, is promoting ‘normalisation’ with the Zionist state. One BDS leader told me with eerie self-assurance that Said would have shut down the orchestra in line with BDS demands. There was even a debate within BDS about whether the Bilin protests ought to be boycotted because of the participation of Israeli Jews who might call themselves ...”

“... a small, pale girl, post-Blackpool, but I had a head stuffed full of chivalric epigrams, and the self-confidence that comes from a thorough knowledge of horsemanship and swordplay. I knew, also, so many people who were old, so many people who were dead: I belonged to their company and lineage, not to this, and I began to want to rejoin them, without the ...”