In the end it may well be that Britain will be honored by the historians more for the way she disposed of an empire than for the way in which she acquired it.

The notion dies hard that in some sort of way exports are patriotic but imports are immoral.

It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump.

In the end it may well be that Britain will be honored by the historians more for the way she disposed of an empire than for the way in which she acquired it.