"He is the first of our writers whose style is cloathed with that perspicuity, in which the English phraseology appears at this day to an English reader…Whether his subject be the life of a hermit or a hero, of saint Austin or Guy earl of Warwick, ludicrous or legendary, religious or romantic, a history or an allegory, he writes with facility."

"There is no necessary connection between the important events of a life and the records of it that have been preserved in memory, in documents, in memorials, or in living testimony. The biographer mus…"

"One mark of a good officer, he remembered, was the ability to make quick decisions. If they happen to be right, so much the better."

"Italy is, after France and perhaps in the same degree, the land in which love of country has the deepest roots in the hearts of its inhabitants. The fact is that perhaps nowhere else has nature been s…"

"I had no idea in 1933 what economics was, but I did well in the subject from the start, and when I graduated in 1937 with first class honours LSE gave me a scholarship to do a PhD in industrial econom…"