Sublime

He has written a memorandum for the king, setting out the sources of his yearly revenues, and detailing through which government offices they pass. It is remarkably concise. The king reads it and reads it again. He turns the paper over to see if anything convoluted and inexplicable is written on the back. But there is nothing more than meets his

As Murray Kempton put it, Ike would not have trusted Dulles “with a stick of dynamite to blow up a duck pond,” but found him useful for clearing minefields.

Petermann had become the guiding spirit behind the expedition—its primary theoretician, its éminence grise.

Churchill’s position after 1914, as a still very young (forty) senior minister, turned on his vastly greater knowledge of naval and military commanders than that possessed by any of his ministerial colleagues – except for Kitchener. But this was by no means a clear advantage. It bred jealousy at least as much as friendship.

Nor did he have to devote much time to the question of Assistant Majority Leader, or “whip,” which was after all a job of even less significance. To Johnson’s request for a “leadership position,” he replied that the whip’s job was his if he wanted it. As a Senate historian was to summarize, “Johnson had no claim to the position, except that he had

is a man you’re waiting for, Mr. Leamas?” asked the American. “Yes, it’s a man.”

"It is indeed probable that the men who are best fitted to discharge the duties of this high office would have too much reserve in their manners, and too much austerity in their principles, for them to be returned by the majority at an election where universal suffrage is adopted."

‘The fact is, I don’t like to begin about it with Brooke, in our mutual position; the whole thing is so unpleasant. I do wish people would behave like gentlemen,’ said the good baronet, feeling that this was a simple and comprehensive programme for social well-being.