The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation.

Liberty in Islam is the liberty to be a Muslim, democracy likewise, individualism likewise.

Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born revolutionary who is believed by most Arab and Iranian observers to be the inspiration of the attacks in New York and Washington, is the best known of the Islamic militants to have emerged in the past 20 years and the least difficult to fathom.

Profits in business always depend on the rate of interest: the higher the interest, the higher the rate of profit required.

Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors.

Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated.

Of all the failed technologies that litter the onward march of science - steam carriages, zeppelins, armoured trains - none has been so catastrophic to prosperity as the last century's attempt to generate electricity from nuclear fission.