"It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty."

"When thinking about companions gone, we feel ourselves doubly alone."

"He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles."

"Look back, and smile on perils past."

"The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East, from Britain's belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago."

"The most important thing I learned as a foreign correspondent in about 80 countries is that it takes a very shallow knowledge of history to think that there are solutions to most problems."

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future."

"Was it not enough punishment and suffering in history that we were uprooted and made helpless slaves not only in new colonial outposts but also domestically."