In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer - the wealth, prestige and grandeur that went with the power.

A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.

The male clerk with his quill pen and copper-plate handwriting had gone for good. The female short-hand typist took his place. It was a decisive moment in women's emancipation.

History gets thicker as it approaches recent times: more people, more events, and more books written about them. More evidence is preserved, often, one is tempted to say, too much. Decay and destruction have hardly begun their beneficent work.

The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight.

Human blunders usually do more to shape history than human wickedness.

Manchester has everything but good looks..., the only place in England which escapes our characteristic vice of snobbery.