University Of Oxford Alumni

"Michael is one of the most talented people in politics. His talents are selective and cultivated to what always seemed to me the point of exaggeration. But anyone who has seen him on television or on a public platform will quickly accept that they are real enough. Michael and I are similar in some ways, very different in others. We are ambitious, single-minded and believe in efficiency and results. But whereas with me it is certain political principles that provide a reference point and inner strength, for Michael such things are unnecessary. His own overwhelming belief in himself is sufficient."

"I decided to give Michael his big chance and put him into Defence. There Michael's strengths and weaknesses were both apparent. He defended our approach to nuclear arms with great panache and inflicted a series of defeats on CND and the Labour Left. He reorganized the MoD, rationalizing its traditional federal structure. Supported by me in the face of departmental obstruction, he brought in Peter Levene to run defence procurement on sound business lines. These were real achievements. But Michael's sense of priorities was gravely distorted by his personal ambitions and political obsessions."

"If I have to intervene to help British companies... I'll intervene—before breakfast, before lunch, before tea and before dinner. And I'll get up the next morning and I'll start all over again."

"I have followed the inspiration of Churchill, Macmillan, Heath and Thatcher, who gave Britain a leading position in one of the power blocks of the 21st century. I have seen that overturned on a cynical exploitative combination of promises led by Boris Johnson. He won a large majority on the slogan Get Brexit Done. Yet here we are, years later, when the criticism, even from its most fanatical supporters like Nigel Farage, is that Brexit has failed."

"The market has no morality."

"I knew that, "He who wields the knife never wears the crown.""

"Michael was one of the great, commanding political figures of my time and I always admired and sympathized with him."

"I was unwarrantably provoked by the singing of The Red Flag. [...] I thought "here is a neo-Marxist group in the House of Commons." Having cheated over the motion, cheated in the lobbies, I thought that in the circumstances they might as well have the mace as well! I rapidly realised this was a reflection on the authority of the Speaker and the House I tried to apologise and will do so unreservedly as soon as I can."

"Polluted rivers, filthy streets, bodies bedded down in doorways are no advertisement for a prosperous or caring society."

"If Hercules tall stature might bee guest But by his thumbe, wherby to make the rest In due proportion; the best rule that I Would choose to measure Venus’ beauty by Should bee her legg and foot. If husbandmen Measure theyr timber by the foot, why then Not we our wives? Whether wee goe or stride Those native compasses are seldome wide Of telling true: the round and slender foot Is a sure index, and a secrett note Of hidden parts; and well this way may lead Unto the closett of a maydenheade: Here, Emblemes of our youth, we roses tye, And here the garter, love’s deare mystery: For want of beauty here the peacock’s pride Letts fall her trayne, and fearing to bee spide Shutts upp her paynted witnesses to lett Those eyes from view which are but counterfett. Who looks not if this part be good or evill May meet with cloven feet and match the divell, For this doth make the difference betweene The more unhallowed creatures and the cleane, Well may you judge her other stepps are lighte, Her thoughts awry that doth not tread aright: But then there’s true perfection when wee see Those parts more absolute that hidden bee: Nature nere layd a fayre foundation For an unworthy frame to rest upon. Lett others view the topp and limbes throughout, The deeper knowledge is to know the roote: And reading of the face the weakest know, What beauty is; the learned looke below; Who, looking there, doe all the rest, descrie As in a poole the moon we use to spie: Pardon (sweetehart) the pride of my desire If but to kisse your toe it should aspire."

"Weep not because this childe hath dyed so yong, But weepe because yourselves have livde so long: Age is not fild by growth of time, for then What old man lives to see th’ estate of men? Who sees the age of grande Methusalem? Ten years make us as old as hundreds him. Ripenesse is from ourselves: and then wee dye When nature hath obteynde maturity. Summer and winter fruits there bee, and all Not at one time, but being ripe, must fall. Death did not erre: your mourners are beguilde; She dyed more like a mother than a childe. Weigh the composure of her pretty partes: Her gravity in childhood; all her artes Of womanly behaviour; weigh her tongue So wisely measurde, not too short nor long; And to her youth adde some few riches more, She tooke upp now what due was at threescore. She livde seven years, our age’s first degree; Journeys at first time ended happy bee; Yet take her stature with the age of man, They well are fitted: both are but a span."

"Tread soft, for if you wake this Knight alone, You raise an Hoast: Religions Champion, His Cuntreys Staffe, Rights bold Distributer, His Neighbours Guard, the Poor mans Almoner, Who dyes with Works about him, as did He, Shall rise attended thus triumphantly."

"My love and I for kisses play'd, Shee would keepe stake, I was content, But when I wonne shee would be paid; This made mee aske her what she meant. Pray, since I see (quoth she) your wrangling vayne, Take your owne kisses, give me myne againe.'"

"Be silent you still musique of the Sphears, And every sense make haste to be all ears, And give devout attention to her aires, To which the Gods doe listen as to prayers Of pious votaries; the which to heare Tumult would be attentive, and would swear To keep lesse noise at Nile, if there she sing, Or with a happy touch grace but the string. Among so many auditors, so many throng Of Gods and men that presse to hear her songs, O let me have an unespied room, And die with such an anthem ore my tomb."

"I have since come to know Michael Heseltine well, and now count him as a friend. But at this time I found him hard to read. He made no effort to enlist me as an ally even though I knew that we had several points in common. We both held a generous view of the role of the Conservative Party in social matters; neither of us denied the importance of government action in carrying this through. We both believed strongly in Britain's role in the European Union, though Michael carried his enthusiasm for integration faster and further than I did. But our temperaments were different. Michael was a cavalry leader, relying on the excitement of a charge to carry him to success. For example, I was surprised and dismayed by his vehement desire to transform the structures of the Civil Service which had always been part of my working life. Michael relished and I disliked the scent of danger."

"I saw faire Cloris walke alone Where feather’d rayne came softly downe, And Jove descended from his tower To court her in a silver shower; The wanton snowe flewe to her breast Like little birds into their nest, And overcome with whiteness there For griefe it thaw’d into a teare, Thence falling on her garment’s hemme For greife it freez’d into a gemme."

"This keepes my hands From Cupid’s bands."

"When Westwell Downes I gan to tread, Where cleanely wynds the greene did sweepe, Methought a landskipp there was spread, Here a bush and there a sheepe: The pleated wrinkles of the face Of wave-swolne earth did lend such grace, As shadowings in Imag’ry Which both deceive and please the eye.The sheepe sometymes did tread the maze By often wynding in and in, And sometymes round about they trace Which milkmayds call a Fairie ring: Such semicircles have they runne, Such lynes acrosse so trymly spunne That sheppeards learne whenere they please A new Geometry with ease.The slender food upon the downe Is allwayes even, allwayes bare, Which neither spring nor winter’s frowne Can ought improve or ought impayre: Such is the barren Eunuches chynne, Which thus doth evermore begynne With tender downe to be orecast Which never comes to haire at last.Here and there twoe hilly crests Amiddst them hug¢g a pleasant greene, And these are like twoe swelling breasts That close a tender fall betweene. Here would I sleepe, or read, or pray From early morne till flight of day: But harke! a sheepe-bell calls mee upp, Like Oxford colledge bells, to supp."

"Returne my joyes, and hither bring A tongue not made to speake but sing, A jolly spleene, an inward feast, A causelesse laugh without a jest, A face which gladnesse doth anoynt, An arm that springs out of his joynt, A sprightfull gate that leaves no print, And makes a feather of a flint, A heart that’s lighter than the ayre, An eye still dancing in his spheare, Strong mirth which nothing can controule, A body nimbler than the soule, Free wandring thoughts not tyde to muse Which thinke on all things, nothing choose, Which ere we see them come are gone; These life itselfe doth feede upon."

"See how the Rainbow in the skie Seems gaudy through the Suns bright eye; Harke how an Eccho answere makes, Feele how a board is smooth’d with waxe, Smell how a glove putts on perfume, Tast how theyr sweetnesse pills assume: So by imputed Justice, Clay Seemes faire, well spoke, smooth, sweet, each way. The eye doth gaze on robes appearing, The prompted Eccho takes our hearing, The board our touch, the sent our smell, The pill our tast: Man, God as well."

"Here silken twynes, there locks you see— Now tell me which the softer bee?"

"The issue before Cabinet, Margaret said, was quite simply the restoration of the doctrine of collective Cabinet responsibility (not something of which she was at all times the most devoted adherent herself). To that end Michael would have to be gagged, by the requirement that he could say nothing on the issue without first clearing it with Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary. Michael objected that this was wholly impracticable, and that in any case collective Cabinet responsibility could scarcely apply since she had not permitted a proper collective discussion of the issue. He spoke quietly, and not at all aggressively, and sought to find some compromise arrangement. But Margaret was adamant. She could see that Michael was now isolated in the Cabinet. The general view of the colleagues was that Michael had become obsessed with the issue, and had lost all sense of proportion... She pressed home her advantage; whereupon Michael slammed his Cabinet folder shut, saying "If this is the way this Government is going to be conducted, I no longer wish to be part of it", picked the folder up and strode out of the room. It was the most dramatic moment in any Cabinet I have attended."

"What thing is that, nor felt nor seene Till it bee given? a present for a Queene: A fine conceite to give and take the like: The giver yet is farther for to seeke; The taker doth possesse nothing the more, The giver hee hath nothing lesse in store: And given once that nature hath it still, You cannot keepe or leave it if you will: The workmanshippe is counted very small, The labour is esteemèd naught at all: But to conclude, this gift is such indeede, That, if some see’t twill make theyr hearts to bleede."

"I know no paynt of poetry Can mend such colourd Imag’ry In sullen inke: yet Fayrford, I May relish thy fayre memory. Such is the Ecchoes faynter sound, Such is the light when sunne is drownd; So did the fancy looke upon The worke before it was begunne: Yet when those shewes are out of sight My weaker colours may delight. Those Images so faythfully Report true feature to the eye As you may thinke each picture was Some visage in a looking-glasse; Not a glasse-window face, unlesse Such as Cheapside hath: where a presse Of paynted gallants looking out Bedecke the Casement round about: But these have holy physnomy: Each pane instructs the Laity With silent eloquence: for here Devotion leads the eye, not eare, To note the catechising paynt, Whose easy phrase doth so acquaint Our sense with Gospell that the Creede In sucha hand the weake may reade: Such types even yet of vertue bee, And Christ, as in a glasse wee see. Behold two turtles in one cage, With such a lovely equipage, As they who knew them long may doubt Some yong ones have bin stollen out. When with a fishing rodde the clarke Saint Peters draught of fish doth marke, Such is the scale, the eye, the finne, Youd thinke they strive and leape within; But if the nett, which holds them breake, Hee with his angle some would take. But would you walke a turne in Pauls? Looke uppe; one little pane inroules A fayrer temple: fling a stone The Church is out o’ the windowes throwne. Consider, but not aske your eyes, And ghosts at midday seeme to rise: The Saynts there, striving to descend, Are past the glasse, and downward bend. Looke there! The Divell! all would cry Did they not see that Christ was by: See where he suffers for thee: see His body taken from the Tree: Had ever death such life before? The limber corps, besullyd ore With meager palenesse, doth display A middle state twixt Flesh and Clay: His armes and leggs, his head and crowne, Like a true Lambskinne dangling downe, Who can forbeare, the Grave being nigh, To bring fresh oyntment in his eye? The wondrous art hath equall fate, Unfencd and yet unviolate: The Puritans were sure deceivd, And thought those shadowes movde and heavde, So held from stoning Christ: the winde And boystrous tempests were so kinde As on his Image not to prey, Whom both the winds and seas obey. At Momus wish bee not amazd; For if each Christian heart were glazde With such a window, then each breast Might bee his owne Evangelist."

"Whene’er the wast makes too much hast, That hast againe makes too much wast."

"It makes you think of the old days. We all knew these fellows, didn't we? This is so real."

"Some plays drift into neglect from sheer familiarity. The success of R. C. Sherriff's Journey's End in 1929 still casts its long shadow: everyone has heard of the piece, and probably caught up with it on radio. And it is invariably used as a reference point for subsequent British war plays."

"In his play Mr. Sherriff had given the world a great thought, a great message, and, she believed, the profound hope that some day by the exposition of the facts there would be abolished the evil institution of war. (Cheers.) ... Mr. Sherriff had taught them what moral and spiritual degradation could come from international warfare. She would like him in his next play to reveal all the horror of that industrial warfare which condemned in times of peace more than a million men in this country to tramp the streets vainly looking for work."

"The King had honoured his play [Journey's End] that night by being present at the Prince of Wales Theatre. In handing over the manuscript of the play he hoped that it might benefit the great cause to which he gave it."

"He did not write the play with the commercial management in mind. He did not write it with a view to peace propaganda; nor did he write for any glorification of war. He wrote it to satisfy himself alone. He wanted to place on record a simple story of war before the memory died. He did not write it with the possibility of an audience in mind, and when one wrote in that way it was easy to tell the truth as one saw it with one's own eyes. One well-known gentleman said it was false; another described it as crude to the last detail; while another writer in a Scandinavian paper said it was the best play Sheridan had written since the War. (Laughter.) He felt that some of his critics had looked from an angle instead of straight from the front. He sincerely resented any statement that it was a disparagement to the soldier to say that the War broke men's nerve. It was the fighting man he had striven to reverence and remember."

"Peradventure they will say thus: Many hundreds of men clepe this image the Trinity, and they clepe this image Christ, and this image the Holy Ghost, and this image Mary, and this image Saint Peter, and this image Saint Paul, and so forth of other; and they would not so clepe, but if they felt and believed withinforth as they clepe withoutforth; for else they were double. Wherefore all those hundreds believe amiss about those images. Thereto it is full light for to answer. When I come to thee in thy parish church thou wilt peradventure say to me thus: Lo here lieth my father and there lieth my grandfather, and in the other side lieth my wife; and yet they lie not there, but only their bones lie there. If I come to thee into thine hall or chamber thou wilt peradventure say to me in describing the story painted or woven in thine hall or chamber: “Here rideth King Arthur, and there fighteth Julius Cæsar, and here Hector of Troy throweth down a knight,” and so forth. For though thou thus say thou wilt not hold thee for to say therein amiss. Shall I therefore bear thee hand that thou trowest thy father and thy grandfather and thy wife for to live and dwell in their sepulchres, or shall I bear thee an hand that thou trowest Arthur and Julius Cæsar and Hector to be quick in thy cloth, or that thou wert double in then so ruling of speech? I trow thou wouldest say I were uncourteous, or else unwise and foolish, if I should bear thee so an hand, if it liked thee for to so speak. And, if this be true, it followeth that as well thou art uncourteous, or else thou art to be excused of uncourtesy by thy great folly and madness, if thou bear me an hand that all the world full of clerks and of other laymen ween some images to be God, and some images to be quick Saints; or that they be double and guilefull, if they clepe an image of God by the name of God, and an image of a Saint by the name of a Saint. But (for more clearly this same answer to be understood) it is to wit, that if figurative speeches were not allowed to be had in use, that the image or the likeness of a thing may be cleped by the name of the thing of which he is image and likeness, and that the part of a thing may be cleped under and by the name of his whole, as that men say they have lived forty winters, meaning thereby that they have lived forty years, certes this challenge might well proceed and have his intent; but againward it is so that such figurative and unproper speech, for to clepe the image of a thing by and under the name of the thing of which he is image, hath been in famous use and hath been allowed both of Holy Scripture and of all peoples. And therefore, though men in such woned figurative speech say, “Here at this altar is the Trinity, and there at thilk altar is Jesus, and yonder is the Holy Ghost, and thereby is Mary with Saint Peter,” and so forth; it needeth not therefore be said that they mean and feel that this image is the Trinity, or that thilk image is verily Jesus, and so forth of other; but that these images be the likenesses or the images of them."

"For to turn now again into the matter of religious; though it be sufficiently now before answered to the second seeming skile made against those religious, yet into greater strengthening and enforcing of the same made answer and into the more clearing of this truth, that the said religious be not to be cut away from the church, I set thus much more here at this time: Though it were so, that no more excuse were to the said religious for to defend them from cutting away than which is before said (that out, from, and by them no sin cometh in the first said manner, but in the second said manner only; and therefore they deserve not to be cut away, namely sith they be means into great ghostly goods), yet more thereto for to excuse may be set thus: that greater sin would come from, by, and out of the cuttings away of those religious than cometh now from, by, and out of the havings and holdings of the same religious, and greater sin is letted by the being and holding of those religious than is all the sin by them coming; and therefore they ought much rather be maintained than be laid aside. That this is true, what is now said, I prove thus: Take me all the religious men of England, which be now and have been in religion in England this thirty years and more now ended, in which thirty years hath been continual great war betwixt England and France; and let see what should have worthe of the men in these years, if they had not been made religious. Let see how they should have lived, and what manner of men they should have been. Whether not they should have been as wellnigh all other men be and have been in this thirty-fourth winter in England; and therefore they should have been or guileful artificers, or unpitiful questmongers and forsworn jurors, or soldiers waged into France for to make much murther of blood, yea, and of souls, both in their own side and in the French side? Who can say nay thereto, but that right likely and as it were unscapably these evils and many more should have befallen to those persons, if they had not been religious? And no man can find againward that those persons, whiles they have lived in religion, have been guilty of so much sin, how much sin is now rehearsed; and of which they should have been guilty, if they had not been religious. Then followeth of need that the religious in England have been full noble and full profitable hedges and wards throughout these thirty-four years for to close and keep and hedge in and warn so many persons from so much greater sins into which else, if those religious had not been, those persons should have fallen and have been guilty. And soothly this skile (as me seemeth) ought move each man full much for to hold with such religious, if he be wise for to consider how sinful it is wellnigh all persons living out of religion; and into how cumbrous a plight the world is brought, that those sins (as it were) may not be left; and how that religious persons should be of like bad condition, if they were not in religion, and that in religion they be not of so bad condition, though they be men and not angels, and cannot live without all sin; and that the sin coming into them, whiles they be in religion, cometh not into them by the religion as by the first manner of coming before taught in the same chapter, but by the second manner of coming only."

"You will never sense the theatre. This is not "acting" but reality. The hand of God presses itself firmly on your shoulder. You realise how truly noble, in spite of all its shortcomings, is this lump of clay called "man." Your soul will be full of gratitude that such men existed, and that they were Englishmen—that the inherited nobility of the race survived at such a moment. These men bring the war back to us."

"That I be the better and the clearer understood of the lay people in some words to be after spoken in this present book, I set now before to them this doctrine taken shortly out of the faculty of logic. An argument, if he be full and formal, which is cleped a syllogism, is made of two propositions, driving out of them, and by strength of them, the third proposition. Of the which three propositions the two first be cleped premisses, and the third following out of them is cleped the conclusion of them. And the first of those two premisses is cleped the first premiss, and the second of them is cleped the second premiss. And each such argument is of this kind, that if the both premisses be true the conclusion concluded out, and by them, is also true; and but if evereither of those premisses be true, the conclusion is not true. Ensample thereof is this: “Each man is at Rome, the Pope is a man, eke the Pope is at Rome.” So here be set forth two propositions, which be these: “Each man is at Rome,” and “The Pope is a man”; and these be the two premisses in this argument, and they drive out the third proposition, which is this: “The Pope is at Rome,” and it is the conclusion of the two premisses. Wherefore, certes, if any man can be sicker for any time that these two premisses be true, he may be sicker that the conclusion is true, though all the angels in heaven would say, and hold that, thilk conclusion were not true. And this is a general rule in every good and formal and full argument, that if his premisses be known for true the conclusion ought be avowed for true, whatever creature will say the contrary.What properties and conditions be required to an argument, that he be full and formal and good, is taught in logic by full, fair, and sure rules, and may not be taught of me here in this present book. But would God it were learned of all the common people in their mother’s language, for then they should thereby be put from much rudeness and boisterousness which they have now in reasoning; and then they should soon know and perceive when a skile and an argument bindeth and when he not bindeth, that is to say, when he concludeth and proveth his conclusion, and when he not so doeth; and then they should keep themselves the better from falling into errors, and they might the sooner come out of errors by hearing of arguments made to them, if they into any errors were fallen; and then they should not be so blunt and so rude and informal and boisterous in reasoning, and that both in their arguing and in their answering, as they now be; and then should they not be so obstinate against clerks and against their prelates, as some of them now be, for default of perceiving when an argument proceedeth into his conclusion of needs, and when he not so doeth, but seemeth only so do. And much good would come forth if a short compendious logic were devised for all the common people in their mother’s language; and, certes, to men of court, learning the king’s law of England in these days, thilk now said short compendious logic were full precious. Into whose making, if God will grant leave and leisure, I purpose sometime after mine other business for to essay."

"Of which first principal conclusion thus proved followeth further this corollary, that whenever and wherever in Holy Scripture, or out of Holy Scripture, be written any point or any governance of the said law of kind, it is more verily written in the book of man’s soul than in the outward book of parchment or of vellum; and if any seeming discord be betwixt the words written in the outward book of Holy Scripture and the doom of reason, writ in man’s soul and heart, the words so written withoutforth ought be expounded and be interpreted and brought for to accord with the doom of reason in thilk matter; and the doom of reason ought not for to be expounded, glazed, interpreted, and brought for to accord with the said outward writing in Holy Scripture of the Bible, or aughtwhere else out of the Bible. Forwhy, when ever any matter is treated by it which is his ground, and by it which is not his ground, it is more to trust to the treating which is made thereof the ground than by the treating thereof by it which is not thereof the ground; and if thilk two treatings ought not discord, it followeth that the treating done by it which is not the ground ought to be made for to accord with the treating which is made by it the ground. And therefore this corollary conclusion must needs be true."

"Even as grammar and divinity be two diverse faculties and cunnings, and therefore be unmeddled, and each of them hath his proper to him bounds and marks, how far and no farther he shall stretch himself upon matters, truths, and conclusions, and not to entermete, neither entermeene, with any other faculty’s bounds; and even as saddlery and tailory be two diverse faculties and cunnings, and therefore be unmeddled, and each of them hath his proper to him bounds and marks, how far and no farther he shall stretch himself forth upon matters, truths, and conclusions, and not intercommune with any other craft or faculty in conclusions and truths: so it is that the faculty of the said moral philosophy and the faculty of pure divinity, or the Holy Scripture, be two diverse faculties, each of them having his proper to him bounds and marks, and each of them having his proper to him truths and conclusions to be grounded in him, as the before-set six first conclusions shew.Wherefore followeth that he unreasonably and reprovably asketh, which asketh where a truth of moral philosophy is grounded in pure divinity or in Holy Scripture, and will not else trow it to be true; like as he should unreasonably and reprovably ask, if he asked of a truth in masonry, where it is grounded in carpentery; and would not else trow it be true, but if it were grounded in carpentery.No man object here against me to be about for to falsify this present thirteenth conclusion; and that, forasmuch as spurriers in London gild their spurs which they make, and cutlers in London gild their knives which they make, as though therefore spurrery and cutlery entermeened and interfered with goldsmith craft, and that these crafts kept not to themselves their proper and several to themselves bounds and marks. For certes though the spurrier and the cutler be learned in thilk point of goldsmith craft which is gilding, and therefore they use thilk point and deed and truth of goldsmith craft, yet thilk point of gilding is not of their craft but only of goldsmith craft; and so the crafts be unmeddled though one workman be learned in them both, and use them both, right as if one man had learned the all whole craft of goldsmithy and the all whole craft of cutlery, and would hold shops of both, and work somewhile the one craft and somewhile the other craft. Yet therefore those crafts in thilk man be not the less diverse, nor never the less keep their severalty in bounds and marks as in themselves, though one man be learned in them both, and can work them both, and hath them both. Yet it is impossible the one of those crafts for to enter and entermete with the truths of the other, though one man can work in them both: for then those two crafts were not two diverse crafts, not subordinate. And thus ought be avoided this objection, right as though a man were a knight and a priest; yet knighthood in thilk man is as far atwin from priesthood in the same man (as by their both natures and beings, though not in place or person), as be knighthood in one person and priesthood in an other person."

"In the early part of the century, audiences possibly listened more than they do today. In Journey's End the verbal construction of the play is very specific, as it is in this play What Every Woman Knows]. I found that if one hadn't committed oneself at the very beginning to the style as laid down by Sherriff, one would reach an emotional hiatus. The style is similar to Barrie's in its literateness. Playing Stanhope was one of the most uplifting things in my career. The Boys' Own part of me could identify with him, and his first entrance was almost the peak of the part. For 15 minutes they've all been talking about Stanhope so in that first moment one had to present that caring about the front line the clinical awareness of the dangers of laziness, of guns being rusty and things like that. It was emotionally and intellectually exhausting to build to that pitch of mania each night, but it did give one's spine a tingle to be able to indulge all the better parts of oneself, to think that one's being a hero."

"Journey's End came at psychologically the right moment. The war had been over for 10 years. What plays there had been about it had tended to be heroic and romanticised – the reality was too near and horrific for close contemplation. Journey's End, set in a dug-out in the front line just before a German offensive, was a simple statement of how men lived after four long years of war... They wait in their dug-out, enduring lice, the stench of earth, ordure, corpses and cordite, knowing but never admitting that their chances of survival are minimal. They talk of insensitive generals but never of the political stupidity that led them to be there. They regard the Germans in their dug-outs on the other side of the barbed wire of No-Man's-Land as being as unfortunate as themselves. They yearn for the sight of the New Forest and the Sussex Downs. To that 1929 audience they must have seemed the incarnation of the lost generation."

"And yet those five volumes may be called the Prose Epic of the modern English nation. They contain the heroic tales of the exploits of the great men in whom the new era was inaugurated; not mythic, like the Iliads and the Eddas, but plain broad narratives of substantial facts, which rival legend in interest and grandeur. What the old epics were to the royally or nobly born, this modern epic is to the common people."

"To harpe no longer upon this string, & to speake a word of that just commendation which our nation doe indeed deserve: it can not be denied, but as in all former ages, they have bene men full of activity, stirrers abroad, and searchers of the remote parts of the world, so in this most famous and peerless government of her most excellent Majesty, her subjects through the speciall assistance, and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speake plainly, in compassing the vaste globe of the earth more then once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth."

"The two editions of Hakluyt's Principall Navigtions, in 1589 and 1598–1600 respectively, embodied twenty years of concerted effort to build a tradition of maritime enterprise and achievement. This again was based in medieval record and legend and so showed the multiple initiatives of Tudor times in perspective, implying a national destiny. Moreover Hakluyt brought together the minds of those concerned, from ordinary seamen to lord admirals, from tourists in the Middle East to City magnates and royal favourites, and he engaged the support of those most committed to expansion, notably Richard Staper, Anthony Jenkinson and Michael Lok, all merchant pioneers, Sir John Hawkins, Ralegh and, above all, Walsingham. Thus Hakluyt did more than anyone to integrate and organize the disparate personalities, experiences and aspirations into a movement with a common consciousness and harnessed the horses of nationalism to the chariot of empire."

"The sea-war in general and privateering in particular did much to associate English nationalism with militant maritime expansion. In attitudes at least the war marked a turning point, signalized by the publication of Hakluyt's Principall Navigations in the year after the Armada and of its extended edition in 1598–1600. Hakluyt's message of oceanic imperialism conquered the reading public with such triumphant ease because the public mind was now ready to accept it."

"Historians do not, as too many of my colleagues keep mindlessly repeating, “reconstruct” the past. What historians do is produce knowledge about the past, or, with respect to each individual, fallible historian, produce contributions to knowledge about the past. Thus the best and most concise definition of history is: “The bodies of knowledge about the past produced by historians, together with everything that is involved in the production, communication of, and teaching about that knowledge."

"For most countries involved in modern war the experience has resulted in, among other things, the testing of the cruder fallacies of economic liberalism, the testing of human reluctance to exploit the full potential of science and technology, and the testing of the general inadequacy of social provisions of the weaker members of the community: looking for the moment only at the broad perspective, one can detect change towards management of the economy, towards a more science-conscious society and towards a welfare state."

"Society has a right to demand from historians accounts which can, if so desired, be used in trying to understand the evolution of political ideas or institutions, or the origins of the many conflicts throughout the world, or to gain the necessary contextual information for enjoying more fully a painting or a poem or some favourite tourist attraction. Those seeking such understandings will not be helped by some speculative theory about the need to replace humanism with radical ideology, or of the inescapability of their situation within language, but will want to feel that the explanations, interpretations, and information they are provided with are based on serious study of the evidence; and it will do them no harm at all if they are also made aware that all sources are fallible, that all study of them must be carried out in accordance with the strictest principles, and that there are always things which we do not know with any certainty."

"If the historian finds himself resorting to metaphor or cliché, that may well be a warning that things have not been sufficiently worked out, and substantiated, to be conveyed in plain simple prose."

"Beneath the pseudo-scientific terminology one can in each case recognize a phantasy of which almost every element is to be found in phantasies which were already current in medieval Europe. The final, decisive battle of the Elect (be they the ‘Aryan race’ or the ‘proletariat’) against the hosts of evil (be they the Jews or the ‘bourgeoisie’); a dispensation on which the Elect are to be most amply compensated for all their sufferings by the joys of total domination or of total community or of both together; a world purified of all evil and in which history is to find its consummation - these ancient imaginings are with us still."

"[I]t is a great mistake to suppose that the only writers who matter are those whom the educated in their saner moments can take seriously. There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, captures, and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility. And it occasionally happens that this underworld becomes a political power and changes the course of history."

"This book began as an enquiry into the origins of the great European witch-hunt. It ended as something wider. It argues that the stereotype of the witch, as it existed in many parts of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is made up of elements of diverse origins, and that some of these derived from a specific fantasy which can be traced back to Antiquity."

"History is the study of the human past, through the systematic analysis of the primary sources, and the bodies of knowledge arising from that study, and, therefore, is the human past as it is known from the work of historians. The human past enfolds so many periods and cultures that history can no more form one unified body of knowledge than can the natural sciences. The search for universal meaning or universal explanations is, therefore, a futile one. History is about finding things out, and solving problems, rather than about spinning narratives or telling stories."