"We read too much Shakespeare at school, and view our parliamentary politics as dynastic drama, in which an impatient crown prince frets at his long subordination and begins to scheme for the throne he knows he merits, was promised and has earned."

"Suicidal violence is not the exclusive property of the Muslim world. Suicide bombings were a tactic of nationalist struggles in 19th-century Europe and Russia, the far east during the second world war and the Vietnam war, and in modern Sri Lanka."

"The world dominion of western thought, forms of organisation, technology and military force is not God-given, nor eternal, nor greatly appreciated by the rest of the world."

"Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing."

"To leave a mark on the world, remember that a single moment of clarity can change a lifetime."

"Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives."

"The roots of genuine insight grow deep in the soil of quiet observation. Such is the immutable nature of understanding — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"It is a quiet truth that the roots of genuine insight grow deep in the soil of quiet observation."