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“... In the shopping precinct that now clings to the skirts of the old Reading Room, a table is laid with portable derivatives of the Rosetta Stone. The number of them hints at a BM merchandising frenzy: for sale, and I may have miscounted, are a mug, a mouse-mat, a ceramic tile, a tie, a teacloth, a scarf, a T-shirt and two sizes of replica, all of them stamped with a presumably random excerpt from the Stone’s inscriptions ...”

“... Everyone​ has heard of the Rothschilds, fewer perhaps of the Sassoons, the Kadoories, the Poliakovs and the Gunzburgs. Yet the Rothschilds were only one of a number of Jewish business dynasties that flourished across the world between the fall of Napoleon and the Second World War. The story of these remarkable family businesses is far from hidden, though poorly understood ...”

“... It is hard to let go of Pythagoras. He has meant so much to so many for so long. I can with confidence say to readers of this essay: most of what you believe, or think you know, about Pythagoras is fiction, much of it deliberately contrived. Did he discover the geometrical theorem that bears his name? No. Did he ponder the harmony of the spheres? Certainly not: celestial spheres were first excogitated decades or more after Pythagoras’ death ...”

“... Montaigne​ presents an unusual case for a biographer: since his essays are full of personal details, his readers feel that they know him well already. He tells us that he lacks the impulse to cuddle babies, that he can scarcely tell the cabbages from the lettuces in his garden, that he loses and regains his temper quickly, that he enjoys sex only before going to bed and never standing up, that he knows no greater pain than that of a kidney stone blocking the urinary tract, and no greater relief than when the stone passes ...”