Great men have foibles for which they can be forgiven; including an occasional failure to see where their greatness lies, or what might diminish it. - Perry Anderson

The range of emotions parents can arouse in their children – affection, rebellion, indifference, fear, adulation, their disturbing combinations – suggest a repertory of subjective universals, cutting in each individual case at random across cultures. What children know – as opposed to feel – about their parents, on the other hand, is likely to be a function of objective constraints that vary more systematically: tradition, place, life-span.

In certain temperaments, intellectual skills and political sympathies have little or no connection. Frege’s anti-Semitism or Wittgenstein’s philo-Stalinism lacked significant leads to their philosophy. Such cases are common enough. Timpanaro was not one of them.

The most advanced socialist thought in England is Raymond Williams’ superbly intricate and persuasive work... Any English Marxism will have to measure itself against this landmark in our social thought.