Travel, mountain-climbing, dabbling in occult rituals, and financing the publication of luxurious editions of his own poetry

Of all the people who frequented the Chat Blanc, no one was more bizarre nor as interesting to Maugham as Aleister Crowley. An eccentric English poet and Satanist, Crowley had inherited £40,000, which he soon exhausted on travel, mountain-climbing, dabbling in occult rituals, and financing the publication of luxurious editions of his own poetry.

R. Calder, Willie: the life of W. Somerset Maugham

But for the invasion of steam, the Barbary corsairs might still be with us

For a thousand years – from 830 to 1830 – from the days when the Amalfitans worn the proud title of “Defenders of the Faith” up to those of the sentimental poet Waiblinger (1826), these shores were infested by Oriental ruffians, whose activities were an unmitigated evil. It is all well and good for Admiral de la Graviere to speak of “Gallia Victrix” – the Americans, too, might have something to say on that point. The fact is that neither European nor American arms crushed the pest. But for the invasion of steam, the Barbary corsairs might still be with us.

N. Douglas, Old Calabria (1915), 139

The state is the most precious of human possessions

The state is the most precious of human possessions .. and no care can be too great to be spent on enabling it to do its work in the best way

Alfred Marshall (1919), quoted in J. Micklethwait and A. Wooldridge, 'The State of the State' Foreign Affairs 93:4 (2014), 118

But my dear, nothing beats Vatican gossip

... Steven Runciman, whom Paddy had met in Sofia in 1934 and who was now the British Council's Representative. Tall , fastidious and a brilliant linguist, Runciman was then working on the History of the Crusades that made his name; but his chief recreation was collecting scandals and stories. 'Royal gossip is very good,' he once said, 'and political gossip is even better; but my dear, nothing beats Vatican gossip.'

A. Cooper, Patrick Leigh Fermor: an adventure (2013), 206

Where else could a presenter get away with saying 'Can I move on to Burckhardt?'

The first, In Our Time, has been described as 'the most cerebral 45 minutes on British radio'. In the course of just one series, for instance, it has tackled Homer's Odyssey, Eighteenth Century Politeness, Agincourt, The Origins of Life, Jean-Paul Satre, and Pi. In each edition, Melvyn Bragg chairs a sustained discussion between three academic experts. On paper the format is utterly forbidding; it is certainly characterized by a high level of seriousness. As one reviewer points out, where else could a presenter get away with saying 'Can I move on to Burckhardt?' or talk of 'the Renaissance reaction against scholasticism and the Ciceronian reaction against Olympian theology'?

D. Hendy, Life on air: a history of Radio Four (2007), 397

To be its Controller was like inheriting a long-established country estate

[David Hatch] talked of Radio Four as 'the soul of the BBC', 'the last bastion' of the Reithian mission to inform, educate, and entertain. To be its Controller was like inheriting a long-established country estate that has to be handed on intact.

D. Hendy, Life on air: a history of Radio Four (2007), 299

The bloodiest outrage he had ever known

Asked during an interview whether he [Kenneth Tynan] would allow the National Theatre to stage a play in which there was sexual intercourse, he had replied 'Oh, I think so' - and then added with characteristic mischief, 'I doubt if there are very many rational people in the world to whom the word "fuck" is particularly diabolical or revolting or totally forbidden.' It was, a Daily Express columnist declared with predictable irrationality, 'the bloodiest outrage' he had 'ever known'.

D. Hendy, Life on air: a history of Radio Four (2007), 101